Issue Date March 2008

2006 Annual Report

        In reviewing our year at Hannah House in 2006, the first thing that strikes us is the record-breaking support we received from individual and community donations. Our annual campaign goal was not only met but passed. Hannah House Board, staff, and program participants want to thank each one of you who helped us out in any way, as 2006 saw more volunteers helping to tutor residents, care for babies, paint and fix things around the house and yard, and more. Without such support, we could not continue to offer our programs and services to the youth we serve.

       In addition to the generous community support through our annual campaign and donations of time and baby supplies, we had our best fundraising event ever. Hannah's Chairs II was a great success, raising more than $29,000. Thank you to all of the Upper Valley artists who created such wonderful pieces of art with the Adirondack Chairs for our auction. A special thank you to Jonathan Singer, who did a chair, donated a book of his pictures for auction, and got two well-known New York graffiti artists to paint chairs for us. We also thank all the underwriters and sponsors for our auction event and the businesses that displayed the chairs during the weeks leading up to the auction.

       What all this fundraising is actually about, of course, is the pregnant and parenting youth from all over New Hampshire and Vermont that we serve at Hannah House. In 2006, we provided outreach services to 80 different youth-parented families just right here in the Upper Valley! Some of these young parents needed help on a one-time basis; others needed us on a weekly or daily basis. Our Vocational Program worked with 20 different youths, either helpng them in getting jobs or enrolling them in our GED class. Volunteers contributed 954 hours of their time in the Outreach, Vocational, and Day Care Programs.

        Another significant event for 2006 was that all the staff who began with us in January were still working here in December. The jobs we do at Hannah House can be very challenging and stressful, and few non-profit agencies can afford to pay good human services personnel at the level they deserve. Therefore, turnover in the field is high. For us to have the consistency in staffing we did this year is a testament to the teamwork and support our staff members provide to each other. This in turn makes our connections with the young parents we serve all that much stronger. That's really important because so many of the kids we serve have issues with loss and abandonment, so that the more consistent we can be in our staffing, the better we can meet their needs. I can't say enough about the quality and dedication of the staff who work at Hannah House.

        In November of 2006, we had a staff retreat, led by our out-going Board President, Judith Esmay. The purpose of the gathering was to review our services and assess what areas of our programming are working well and which need to be changed. Although we were not able to "fix" all the issues identified, we made strong headway in setting priorities and mapping out the steps to be taken in our program assessment. After all, the youth we serve have constantly changing needs, and we must evolve our approaches to match those needs. One of our greatest strengths at Hannah House is being able to individualize treatment and to be flexible in problem solving. That same flexibility is required in structuring our programs and services, adapting them to meet changing needs. Here is a list of the topics we discussed:

• program organization
• team cohesion
• overnight monitoring for newborns
• a "babies first" philosophy
• resident response to safety rules
• hospitality at the house
• outcome assessment forms and data
• resident curfew and phone use
• becoming more involved in family work