Issue Date October 2006
Annual Report 2005
"It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times..."
- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two cities
In 2005, we held our first "Hannah's Chairs"
fundraising event, which was a great success. And yet, we had to
make significant staffing cuts to our residential and Day Care
programs just to keep our doors open. We had estimated that,
without these cuts and if we continued to experience the deficits
of the prior three years, Hannah House had barely three years of
operation left.
The major reason we had
experienced such significant financial losses in 2002, 2003, and
2004 was the flat-line daily rate we have been paid for our
residential program by the State of New Hampshire - in defiance,
mind you, of the state's own rate-setting rules. New rate setting
rules were passed by the Legislature to go into effect in July of
2003, which was supposed to ensure that our rate was based on cost,
quality, and availability of services. The Department of Health and
Human Services saw fit to treat these "rules" as optional, however,
and they were never implemented.
We didn't take our losses
lying down. Ours was one of seven programs to follow the appeal
process that was written into the rate setting rules to appeal our
reimbursement rates in 2004 and 2005. The Administrative Appeals
Panel ruled in favor of the residential programs in all appeals
and, in 2005, ordered the Division of Children, Youth and Families
(DCYF) to pay residential services providers a recalculated rate
for the month of June. The Division did not follow the order -
nor did it use the recalculated formula to come up with new rates
in fiscal year 2006. Again we appealed and won. Again the State
did not follow the order of the Appeals Panel. The appeals cases
are now in the New Hampshire Supreme Court.
This process has been
frustrating, draining, and expensive. I've talked about it at
length in this year's Annual Report because the appeals saga is an
important piece of what we have had to struggle with in order to
continue providing the best programs and services we can to
parenting youth in the Upper Valley and throughout New Hampshire.
Not the least of the challenges is the arbitrary and unpredictable
nature of the rate setting process, making it nearly impossible for
service providers to budget rationally. Therefore, aggressive
legislative and legal advocacy by providers has become an imperative
rather than merely an option.
Where the Needs Are
In 2005, we saw an
increase in the number of outreach participants coming to us
for services. So besides needing to increase our residential
and Day Care staff back to 2004 levels, we also need to increase
our outreach staff to meet the growing needs of that program.
Unfortunately, we are unable to fund such a staffing increase at
this time. Our Outreach Case-manager, KimJo Therrien spends
much more time in the community meeting with young parents than
she does in the office. This is really great for those who seek
our services, but it keeps KimJo on the go the majority of her
time.
Our Vocational program
continued to offer job training skills and job placement to our
participants, as well as classes and tutoring to those who seek
to qualify for their GED (General Equivalency Degree). Our
pregnancy, childbirth, newborn and parenting classes were
attended by an increased number of Upper Valley youth. We
also provided our Teen Panel to area high schools and junior
high schools. These panels, made up of young mothers, talk to
students about the realities of teen parenthood and childbirth.
Their goal is not to scare students away from parenthood, but to
encourage them to wait until they are emotionally and financially
mature enough to undertake the responsibilities of child-raising.
New Strategies for Fund-Raising
On June 26, 2005,
the Hanover Inn hosted our first ever Hannah's Chairs event.
We auctioned 20 Adirondack chairs painted by local artists and
raffled off one chair and a number of donated items from area
businesses. The chairs from this event were featured in our
last annual report. Besides the event raising twice as much as
any previous fundraiser for Hannah House, the incredible
donations of time and energy from the artists and the increased
community awareness regarding our services generated by the
public display of the chairs, encouraged us to hold Hannah's
Chairs II last June (2006). Hannah's Chairs III will be held in
June of 2007. Again we are seeking artists to paint the chairs
and people or businesses to sponsor chairs. Any interested
parties can call Hannah House to get the details.
For Hannah House to
maintain our programs, we have to remain active in the
increasingly competitive world of fundraising. With so many
deserving non-profit agencies seeking funding from limited
foundation resources, the challenge is for us to raise even more
funds though our annual campaign and special fundraising events.
In 2005 we had a fundraising goal of $80,000 and through your
support and generosity exceeded that goal by over $9,000.
On behalf of our Board, staff and program participants, I want
to say again, "Thank you!"
- Randy Walker, Executive Director
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