Community Development
We work side by side and step by step with people facing multiple and complex barriers-including mental illness, substance abuse, and homelessness.
We partner with other organizations to design and deliver innovative, on-the-ground approaches that respond to the multiple needs of homeless adults and children, ex-offenders striving to reintegrate into society, immigrant families living in the inner city, and other disadvantaged people.
We support those who have overcome problems so that they can share their stories and insights with policymakers and practitioners across health, education, and employment systems.
We have developed
- Nine symposia across the country, conducted with Boston's St. Francis House, that focused on an innovative model of addiction recovery and life skills training for homeless adults and ex-offenders
- A Web-based evaluation tool for schools and communities to report and share the challenges and successes of their local programs for the education of homeless children and youth
- A set of learning modules for youth in detention to increase their information technology skills and competencies
- A career development curriculum that helps ex-offenders reintegrate into the community and avoid recidivism
- An ESL curriculum for adult education classes, helping immigrants protect their families from lead poisoning
- A training tool for school personnel to help children and youth who have experienced disruption to their education due to foster care, group home placement, placement in a correctional facility, homelessness, or in-patient psychiatric care
One example of what we do is the Whole Health Care Project, which focuses on the needs of homeless adults. Because our system of medical care, mental health, addiction treatment, and other human services for chronic homeless adults is fragmented, homeless people die every day on the streets in a country as rich as the United States. Working to prevent these deaths, EEC has collaborated with many prominent human service agencies in Boston and created an innovative, comprehensive, and integrated program for this most difficult to serve population.
"The work [on homeless education] has been excellent. [EDC has] been very professional, responsive, and innovative. . . . [They've provided] quite an evaluation system. . . . With respect to the partnerships, that wouldn't be happening without EDC."
— Homeless education coordinator,
Connecticut Department of Education
Projects:
Publications:
Reviled, Rejected, but Resilient: Homeless People in Recovery and Life Skills Education
SOS: Step with Our Suggestions on Recovery from Addiction and Alcoholism
Contact:
Tajah Holmes
Center Financial Manager
tholmes@edc.org
