Promise Heights’ Nimble Response to COVID-19

The University of Maryland, Baltimore featured this story by Lisa Lewenz in The Elm on April 22, 2020:

The School of Social Work program’s teams have used ingenuity to transform and expand their usual face-to-face services/practices into virtual opportunities for Upton/Druid Heights residents.

During the past month, Promise Heights’ licensed social workers and their PromiseCorps teams (AmeriCorps) have used ingenuity, pure creativity, and nimble responses to transform and expand their usual face-to-face services into a variety of virtual opportunities for their many constituencies in the Upton/Druid Heights communities. And happily, these solutions are working so well that many may well serve as new foundations, methods, and practices within social work once the COVID-19 pandemic fades into the past.

As mental health professionals who are more than familiar with assisting communities facing a lifetime of trauma and suffering, Promise Heights’ consistent aim is to use Promise Neighborhood policies and strategies to improve outcomes for children and their families by providing widely ranging direct services and programs. 

This decade-old initiative of the School of Social Work finds its home in five public neighborhood schools and provides support for many other nonprofit programs, maintaining the ambitious aim of improving educational outcomes for youth and ensuring that families are healthy and successful in these West Baltimore communities. And statistics paired with numerous testimonials have proved its consistent successes. 

So what happens when suddenly one can’t meet in person during the many workshops, support sessions, and school-based programs that take place with Promise Heights’ families each and every week? 

The B’more for Healthy Babies program began hosting virtual check-ins with expectant and parenting families of children 0-3 years of age, launched virtual prenatal and postpartum support groups, and made drop-offs of diapers, wipes, and breastfeeding supplies, while partnering with neighborhood churches to help expand these opportunities. 

Parent University transitioned to holding weekly virtual parent education sessions and has built important social media platforms to maintain one-on-one daily contact with parents, including reading stories, practicing social/emotional strategies for young children, and teaching stress-reduction techniques for parents. 

The five Community School teams immediately began volunteering to assist with food distribution programs while creating and delivering informative postcards and flyers to address safety, hygiene practices, and ways to best assess and address children’s behavioral changes and trauma during this pandemic. They have hosted virtual engagement events like Netflix watch parties, have demonstrated how to make do-it-yourself hand sanitizers and masks, have distributed art and craft supplies, assisted guidance counselors to ensure graduating seniors will meet all graduation requirements, and have supported parents with Google classroom issues via phone, text, and virtual contact, while also conducting regular mental health check-ins. 

Meanwhile, family prosperity coordinator Vania Iscandari, LMSW, created postcards providing crucial financial supports that were distributed in public meal sites and helped to fulfill emergency financial requests, assisted with stimulus package issues, and supported clients through weekly check-ins. Plus we have created a Promise Heights YouTube channel and used several social media outlets to share what each team has done with our wide and diverse audience that continues to grow.

Each of these examples merely scratch the surface of the ambitious work that’s happening behind the scenes at Promise Heights.

It’s easy to imagine that years from now, countless PhD theses and historians will focus on the successes and apparent issues that arose during this pandemic, and it’s clear that Promise Heights teams are providing significant examples of methods that may become dynamic foundations for future practices. 

To learn more about Promise Heights’ many actions, please follow our efforts as well as engage and help share our efforts via our social media platforms.