Our Programs
We develop, support and invest in the most impactful strategies and partners to strengthen education, income and health in our community. Together, we can tackle complex, interconnected issues and create lasting change in our community.
Together, we put opportunity in the hands of over one million North Texans last year.
United Way Programs
Encourages and rewards nonprofits that create formal long-term collaborations to maximize impact.
read moreProvides training and resources to help small nonprofits, churches and neighborhood associations operate efficiently, increase impact and compete for funding.
read moreCreates positive impact in southern Dallas communities by providing healthy meals, quality childcare, career opportunities and preparing students for success.
read moreProvides resources for childcare centers to increase the quality of preschool programming and ensure kids start kindergarten ready to thrive.
read moreHelps kids grow up with a college savings account, substantially increasing their likelihood of attending college and graduating.
read moreProvides quality childcare in southern Dallas so kids start strong, mothers can work and employers get an expanded workforce.
read moreProvides the funding for most of our annual basic needs grants, allowing us to consistently respond to families in need.
read moreCreates innovative solutions for moving workers into good jobs and ensures employers have a pipeline of skilled, ready-to-work employees.
read moreProvides families the tools and know-how to increase savings, improve credit scores, reduce debt and avoid predatory lending products.
read moreGives families access to insured deposit accounts, fair credit and quality financial programs.
read moreOffers free tax preparation services that help families maximize tax refunds and create a foundation for savings.
read moreA digital platform delivering financial tools, information and resources for job support, debt reduction, free tax prep, budgeting and saving.
read moreGives local parents the instruction, resources and skills to create home environments in which young children can thrive.
read moreEncourages middle school students to build values and character with the support and involvement of NFL players and representatives.
read moreEngages high school culinary students to create healthy recipes for elementary students to prepare in their 21-Day healthy snacking Challenge.
read moreProvides afterschool fitness and wellness activities that encourage exercise, nutrition, teamwork, gratitude and community service.
read moreHelps schools create a health-conscious culture that improves academic performance and encourages habits for lifelong wellbeing.
read moreSupports community organizations that provide nutritious meals to children during the summer months when school is out of session.
read moreIncreases student success in the southern Dallas Roosevelt Feeder Pattern with programs, events and workshops that address challenges and opportunities.
read moreHelps students understand their options after graduation by providing college and career exploration, skills building sessions, corporate visits and more.
read moreMatches parents and soon-to-be-parents with trained home visitors that teach positive parenting strategies and how to prepare kids for kindergarten.
read moreSupplies quality child development information via a free text service to help parents become confident first teachers for their child.
read moreDelivers age-appropriate children’s books to families each month to stimulate curiosity, language development and learning skills.
read moreAberg Center for Literacy provides programs in English fluency classes, high school equivalency/GED preparation, and career track to build the foundation for successful careers for adult learners.
Achieve’s Workforce Development Program provides training and employment services for youth and adults with disabilities so that they can develop essential work readiness skills, achieve work success, escape poverty, and live a life of dignity and self-sufficiency. Services include job readiness training, vocational adjustment training, job placement, job skills training, employment retention services, case management, computer lab/assistance, transportation, and employer education.
After-School All-Stars provides comprehensive after-school programs that keep children safe and help them succeed in school and life. The goals for All-Stars are that they grow up safe and healthy, graduate high school and go on to college, find careers they love, and give back to their communities. We achieve this by identifying and fueling our students’ individual passions, tying their interests to tailored academic support, enrichment, and health and fitness activities after-school.
Agape Housing 4 Hope helps homeless women, moms, and their children move from crisis, poverty, and abuse to economic and emotional stability. The program provides transitional housing, counseling, workforce education and scholarships, child care and development, financial education and coaching transportation assistance, and accountability-based casework.
Back on Track's goal is to support a family's obtaining or returning to financial stability. The key component to the success of this initiative is increased wages. In order to accomplish this, we invest financially by removing all threats of eviction and or utility disconnection. This gives the family the peace of mind to engage in our wage increasing strategies that include employment assistance, career coaching, and financial coaching.
PCEP teaches low-income parents to stimulate their children's development from 0-3 and support their growth and success from early childhood to high school graduation. This nine-month bilingual program provides weekly four-hour parent classes, onsite childcare/education, home visits, and supportive services. Outcomes include improved parenting knowledge/decisions and increased early childhood development.
Bachman Lake Together is a community initiative that nurtures families committed to raising young children who begin school ready for kindergarten. This involves readiness from a physical, emotional, social, and cognitive perspective. Bachman Lake Together takes a collective impact approach to kindergarten readiness by convening families, community members, local schools, and service providers to create a greater impact that any one stakeholder could have alone.
Baylor Scott & White Health and Wellness Center provides uninsured/underinsured individuals with access to primary care, evidence-based healthy lifestyle and disease management programs, low-cost produce sold at weekly farm stands, and physical activity at the Juanita J. Craft recreation center in southern Dallas. The Healthy Cities Program scales components of these programs to other Dallas sites.
Dallas Coalition for Hunger Solutions was created in 2012, chaired by Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson and spearheaded by the Texas Hunger Initiative, the North Texas Food Bank, and other nonprofits and religious organizations. Through five action teams, they bring together community leaders who are engaged in the work of addressing poverty and hunger to act in a collaborative setting. The mission is to empower residents to gain equal access to healthy food.
Beacon Hill Preparatory Institute’s Math and Reading Tutoring Program for Students in Pre-K - 12th grade prepares and equips students, and schools, from under-served areas to meet and exceed academic grade-level requirements. By using a low student-to-teacher ratio, the proven Gideon curriculum, professional staff, and trained volunteers they ensure students in Southern Dallas and the surrounding communities catch up, keep up and stay ahead to prepare them for college and beyond.
Big Brothers Big Sisters provides 1-to-1 evidence-based mentoring to youth. A positive adult role model can defend, ignite, and encourage a child’s potential and help them overcome challenges to their success. The Big Brother Big Sisters model, from initial interviews to matching and beyond, is strategically designed and supported to suit each child’s unique needs. Youth receive holistic support to achieve educational success; higher aspirations, greater confidence and better relationships; and avoid/reduce risky behaviors.
Dallas City of Learning targets young people from marginalized communities, activating a powerful network of partners to help close the opportunity gap. Dallas City of Learning connects youth with low- and no-cost educational experiences that cultivate creativity, build social-emotional skills and boost academic achievement. Through Dallas City of Learning’s learning pathways, young people engage in digital and in-person activities that spark their interest and feed their curiosity.
Bonton Farms serves Bonton, one of the most neglected, impoverished communities in South Dallas. Programs include food and nutrition, workforce development, transportation, housing, mentoring, and education. The goal is to provide skills-building, basic needs, and compassion for Bonton residents who have no other place to turn. Through their work, individuals will gain the resources and support they need to lift themselves and their families out of poverty.
Project Learn reinforces the academic enrichment and school engagement of young people during the time they spend at Boys & Girls Clubs of Collin County. Club staff use all the areas and programs in the Club to create opportunities for high-yield learning activities including leisure reading, writing activities, discussions with knowledgeable adults, helping others, homework help, tutoring, and games that develop young people’s cognitive skills.
Academic Success’s goal is to ensure all Dallas County youth, no matter their income level or what zip code they live in, progress scholastically each year and graduate from high school on time, ready for post-secondary education or a career. Program activities include: homework assistance and tutoring, a math competition, personal finance, STEM, literacy interventions, college prep, and High Yield Activities (to supplement school curricula in alignment with Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards).
The Café Momentum internship program increases employment and decreases recidivism in Dallas area adjudicated teens through 12-month paid internships and job training set in a casual fine dining restaurant. As part of the wraparound care model, interns also receive case management support to re-enroll in an accredited education program, address critical housing, food, and medical needs, and access counseling with licensed professionals, among other services.
The Callier Center’s Early Childhood Listening and Language Program provides comprehensive audiology and speech-language services that positively impact developmental progress for young children diagnosed with hearing loss. The program allows these children the opportunity to function in a hearing world, increase their school readiness and potential for academic success, and improve their overall quality of life.
CASA of Collin County trains and supports volunteers who are appointed by Judges as Guardian ad litem and serve as advocates for children placed into foster care due to abuse and neglect. CASA volunteers develop a trusting relationship with each child, conduct independent investigations, and advocate for the child’s best interest within the legal system. The goal is to serve 100% of Collin County foster children to ensure that they receive the services needed and find a safe and permanent home.
CASA of Denton County volunteers serve as Guardian ad litem and as advocates for children placed into the foster care system due to abuse and neglect throughout their court process. They will get to know the child and maintain contact with others on the case to ensure the child's needs are met. These volunteers speak directly to the court about their recommendations with the goal of a safe, stable home for the child.
Catch Up & Read's goal is to meet demand by scaling their program across Dallas ISD. Catch Up & Read students participate in over 70 hours of targeted literacy intervention in order to make gains in literacy attainment. Catch Up & Read teachers train over 100 hours in literacy best practices in order to become stronger literacy instructors and interventionists.
Poverty Alleviation works directly with low-income, high-need individuals and families, providing integrated services to help move those in crisis and trapped in the cycle of poverty toward self-sufficiency and financial stability. The program’s activities align with the proven Working Families Success model of integrated services developed by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, namely income supports (financial assistance, food, in-kind); financial education; and job placement services.
Child and Family Guidance Centers provide adults and children with serious mental illnesses with an intensive continuum of comprehensive, integrated, culturally competent mental health services and support proven to minimize the disability's negative impact on current and future life outcomes and improve social and educational success. The program improves individual and family quality of life through access to mental health care based on proven measurement processes and instrumentation.
ChildCareGroup provides holistic, high quality early education programs for young children and support services to their parents. Using the research-based Two Generation Approach, ChildCareGroup strives to break the cycle of generational poverty through direct early education programs and wrap-around services so families have what they need to move out of poverty. Outcomes of the programs are that children will be kindergarten-ready, families will improve self-sufficiency, and children and parents will be physically and mentally healthy.
Children First Counseling Center provides affordable counseling services to adults, teens, and children. Most are from low-income households and have suffered from abuse or neglect. Play Therapy is provided for the youngest clients so that healing and early intervention can begin as early as age 3. The program has a long history of success with most clients achieving positive improvement on an evidence-based scale of functioning. Services are provided in English and Spanish.
Children’s Advocacy Center for Denton County coordinates the investigation and prosecution of severe child abuse cases (severe physical abuse, sexual abuse, witnesses to death or violence) for law enforcement, Child Protective Services, and the district attorney's office through forensic interviews, case coordination, medical evaluations, therapy, and family advocacy. The goal is to ensure that every child who makes an outcry of abuse receives the necessary services by providing case coordination and collaboration between service providers.
The Children's Advocacy Center for Rockwall County provides a safe, secure, confidential, and child-friendly environment through which their Multidisciplinary Team (law enforcement, Child Protective Services, medical and mental health professionals, District Attorney's office, and Children’s Advocacy Center staff) develops strategies to restore the lives of children and non-offending family members or caregivers. They strive to ensure safety, pursue justice, and foster healing for child victims of abuse that reside in Rockwall County.
The Victim Discovery and Treatment program’s goal is to ensure that all victims of child abuse in Collin County are provided with a safe environment to share their story and that victims and non-offending family members have access to quality mental health care that helps them cope with the trauma caused by abuse.
The Medicaid/CHIP Outreach Program at Children’s Health increases access to high-quality health care by connecting local families with the resources they need to enroll in and maintain health insurance coverage. With funding from United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, Children’s Health plans to expand and enhance its Medicaid and CHIP outreach in North Texas, responding to the ever-increasing pediatric population across North Texas and associated barriers to accessible health care.
Christian Community Action’s Family Assistance Program has a simple objective: moving people into a position of self-sufficiency. Christian Community Action operates an inclusive program that allows case managers to build a customized continuum of services that transform lives and addresses the specific need of each client. Clients are guided through the three phases of the program; rescue, relief and restoration in order to live out our value of providing a hand-up and not a hand-out program.
The ScoutReach program goal is to prepare youth for success by instilling life skills and core values and developing confidence with short term outcomes of higher grades and grade completion rates. Key program activities include camping, advancement, training, monthly programs, and hands-on learning experiences in specialized career interests. Outcomes include positive interaction with an adult, youth demonstrate increased awareness of an interest in careers, and youth demonstrate increase in job readiness skills.
City Year's Whole School Whole Child program provides individualized, data-driven interventions to Dallas ISD students who need additional supports. They deploy diverse teams of AmeriCorps members to high-poverty schools across Dallas to support students in attendance, social emotional learning, and academics. They also facilitate after-school programming to help keep students engaged in the academic culture of their campus. The goal is to help students stay in school and on track to graduation.
CitySquare’s Workforce Development program connects neighbors and partners to the transformative power of work, community, and opportunity. Inclusive of income supports and financial empowerment, CitySquare Workforce Development works to help people secure jobs, transition out of poverty, and achieve stability through four pathways: hospitality training, construction training, barista training, and career readiness. The employment goal helps neighbors obtain jobs with a wage of $11+ per hour, to improve their quality of life.
The program goal is to equip K-12 students who are at-risk with the tools and resources to be successful in school, graduate ready for post-secondary achievement, and maintain social-emotional wellness throughout their lives. Through the provision of evidence-based, holistic, Integrated Student Supports, students facing barriers to success, including inequitable access to resources, will be provided direct services and supports to build resiliency and achieve success in school and in life.
The SafetyNet Project builds on existing services to bring Mental Health First Aid to their school partners and expand broad-base community training and engagement. Through this project, Mental Health First Aid trainings will be provided to non-partner schools, other organizations, and the community. Funding will support expansion within current partnerships in Dallas and Collin counties with potential expansion into Rockwall County.
The Harmony Empowerment Network Program is a self-sufficiency program designed to reach individuals in a cohort group, ages 18 to 45, who are unemployed or underemployed. The program provides a holistic approach through intense case management using assessments, action plans, resources, and wraparound services customized for what a participant must have to obtain employment, education, or career advancement leading to livable wages.
Cornerstone Crossroads Academy is a private school with a mission to develop urban youth in South Dallas through transformative education. Program activities include academic instruction, case management, therapeutic counseling, and college and career counseling and support.
Cristo Rey Dallas serves students from low-income families by providing four years of rigorous academics, hands on business experiences, and comprehensive mental health services. The goal is to graduate students with the educational, professional, and social-emotional skills to persist through a four-year college degree and beyond, fulfilling the motto, “To and Through.” They are creating the next generation of leaders and learners.
Dallas Afterschool serves as their community’s backbone organization in the afterschool and summer learning space, providing coaching, training, curriculum, and resources to afterschool programs and staff members who teach low-income students in Dallas County. Through their Program Quality Initiative, they help free and low-cost afterschool and summer programs improve academic and social outcomes for all students, regardless of race, income, or zip code.
Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center coordinates the investigation of criminal child abuse cases in a seamless, collaborative process. They facilitate a coordinated approach to child abuse cases that results in more successful investigation and prosecution outcomes and provides a less traumatic response to child victims and families. Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center serves children and their non-offending family members through their core programs: Family Advocacy, Forensic Interview and Therapy Programs.
The Dallas Services Vision Clinic works to increase access to essential vision healthcare by providing comprehensive eye exams and prescription eyeglasses to individuals with Medicaid, Medicare, other publicly funded programs and those individuals who are uninsured or medically at-risk. Strategic community outreach will ensure that their partners are aware of this opportunity for quality eye healthcare.
Denton County Friends of the Family increases safety and healing for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault by providing counseling, advocacy, emergency shelter, crisis line, legal services, and transitional housing.
Education is Freedom increases college, career, and life readiness among underserved youth in Dallas ISD. Starting in middle school, Education is Freedom seeks to build, strengthen, and empower all students to achieve their post-secondary educational dreams. Through innovative programming and training, Education is Freedom creates a culture that supports college, career, and life readiness. Programming from middle school through high school allows Education is Freedom to provide a seamless service model that will help middle school and high school transitions.
Education Opens Doors equips students to realize their academic and professional potential by providing a comprehensive college knowledge program called Roadmap to Success beginning in middle school. They train teachers in traditional school settings to deliver a program that includes a ready-made curriculum and training resources to teach college and career knowledge and soft skills, ensuring that all students have access to a range of options for college and career success.
Relief and Opportunity Corps simultaneously decreases the high levels of food insecurity in the Dallas area and provides expanded learning opportunities for youth at free community-based Out of School Time education programs. They focus their efforts in areas with high concentrations of poverty, but ones historically underserved by social service agencies. By leveraging the resources of multiple agencies, they can reduce hunger for individuals and provide academic support to youth.
Family Compass’ overarching goal of their Child Abuse Prevention Services is to stop child abuse before it happens and keep children out of the child welfare system. They do this by offering a menu of services that range from community-based education and support to intensive, tailored in-home mentoring. As a result of parents completing the proven programs and implementing parenting best practices, the high-risk children they work with will not become system involved.
Family Gateway offers the only low-barrier emergency shelter for families with children experiencing homelessness in Dallas County that will accept a family of any kind and keep them together. They use an assessment-based approach to find families who can be served outside of shelter and then coordinate across family-serving shelters to maximize space. While in shelter, adults are provided with housing-focused intensive case management and children are stabilized with day care and school enrollment.
The Family Place Domestic Violence Program’s goal is to empower victims by providing safe housing, counseling, and skills that create independence while building community engagement and advocating for social change to stop family violence. Services offered include a 24-hotline, emergency shelter for women, men, and children, transitional housing, childcare, medical care, employment, legal services, individual and group therapy, supervised visitation, and batterers intervention services.
First3Years has a holistic approach to create a healing environment for infants and toddlers who have experienced trauma and neglect. This program supports policy and programmatic changes within foster care and other early childhood systems to become trauma informed. They educate stakeholders in current research to ensure decisions are developmentally informed. With the goal of positive lifetime outcomes for children, their programming provides wrap around services that empower families and improves communities.
Foundation Communities’ Dallas Community Tax Center program is the largest Volunteer Income Tax Assistance provider in North Texas. Dallas Community Tax Center’s free tax prep sites help families earning $58,000 or less per year maximize tax time refunds, access valuable tax credits such as Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit and connect families with support services.
Dallas Frequent Users System Enhancement Project places case management navigators at key locations in Dallas County to assist frequent utilizers of public services in securing housing. Navigators identify frequent users of jails, shelters, hospitals, and/or other emergency services and seek to improve their lives through affordable housing, mental health care, and/or substance abuse treatment which stabilizes them and reduces returns to jail, homelessness, reliance on emergency services, and improves overall quality of life.
Clinical Counseling and Advocacy Programs work together to help clients heal from the trauma of abuse, thus ending the generational cycle of violence. While the Clinical Program addresses clients’ mental and emotional needs, the Advocacy Program provides for clients’ temporal, corporal, and material needs, by ensuring access to safe housing, support systems, health care, legal representation, and job and financial assistance as they rebuild their lives free from abuse.
The Girl Scout Leadership Experience engages girls to discover themselves, connect with others, and take action to make the world a better place. Girls develop life skills such as a strong sense of self, positive values, seeking challenges, learning from setbacks, forming and maintaining healthy relationships, and identifying and solving problems in their communities. Girls participate in girl-led educational opportunities, including STEM workshops, financial literacy, and outdoor experiences.
The Girls Inc. Experience provides girls ages 6-18 from low-income families with resources and support to become healthy, educated, and independent young women. Programming focuses on three core components: healthy living, academic enrichment and support, and life skills instruction focusing on serving the whole girl, in a pro-girl and girls only environment.
Good Jobs delivers integrated workforce development, financial capability, and advancement activities for low-income individuals through job creation, innovative partnerships with employers, and focused job placement and retention services. They leverage partnerships with colleges and employers to train and place clients into jobs that will pay a normal standard of living wage. The goal is to serve many individuals that result in a trained workforce and increases employment numbers.
Healing Hands Ministries provides accessible, quality, and compassionate healthcare for the uninsured, underinsured, and those with private insurance. They are committed to welcoming the stranger with barrier-free access to healthcare, nurturing the sick, and connecting a community.
Health Services of North Texas will expand primary healthcare to new patients in need by hiring a new physician, medical assistant, and medical receptionist at our Collin County Medical Center. Through ongoing medical care, behavioral health screenings, and health education, patients will experience improved health outcomes (e.g. controlled/managed diabetes, hypertension, and depression) which will enable them to positively impact their community.
Heart House serves underprivileged refugee children with an innovative, culturally competent after-school and summer program using social-emotional learning to help build their confidence levels and improve academic performance. Established in 2000, Heart House provides life-changing services to refugee children and operates in the heart of the Vickery Meadow community of Dallas, a high-poverty area where 50 different languages are spoken.
Inspiring Tomorrow’s Leaders, in partnership with Allstate Insurance and State Farm, developed the Flagship Insurance Leadership Program to provide a pipeline of qualified candidates to fill employment gaps in the insurance industry. Flagship Insurance Leadership Program includes 126 hours of coursework to prepare clients to achieve the Texas Property-Casualty License. After course completion, Inspiring Tomorrow’s Leaders provides clients with job placement services.
The Family Empowerment Program follows a simple, proven formula, Eliminate Barriers + Equip Parents + Educate Children = Empower Working Families. They eliminate barriers like housing and childcare as working poor families look for work. They equip parents by providing career and financial coaching and educate children with daily homework assistance and tutoring to enhance math and reading skills.
The Irving Cares Emergency Assistance Program provides resources such as food, information, referrals, and emergency financial assistance with a housing payment, a utility payment, limited prescription assistance, and bus passes for work. Services are delivered through two different pathways: the Invest in Yourself Initiative (preferred), or the traditional Irving Cares model.
Jewish Family Service’s fundamental “wraparound” approach to service delivery is to assess and address all issues that may be impacting an individual’s emotional well-being and their ability to achieve and maintain self-sufficiency. All services are interrelated, and key program activities are focused in the areas of mental health, employment and financial stability, and basic needs.
Jubilee’s Out of School Time Program includes Afterschool and Summer Camp programs to provide year-round, experiential learning that measurably promotes academic and character development for hundreds of children in southeast Dallas each year. The program focuses on reading and math through highly trained, certified teachers alongside innovative technology and committed volunteers. Students also participate in social-emotional learning and whole-family learning activities throughout the year.
Junior Achievement of Dallas provides entrepreneurship, financial literacy, and work readiness education to predominately low to moderate income students in the North Texas area which is delivered by community and corporate volunteers. Junior Achievement programs provide students with the knowledge and tools they need to achieve their educational and career goals.
The KIPP Through College program is a vital, foundational component of their students’ college success. KIPP Through College seeks to ensure every student who walks through the KIPP Texas-DFW doors has the tools to succeed in college and in life. KIPP Through College supports their students attending the newly established KIPP Oak Cliff Academy as well as 8th grade completers attending high schools in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Literacy Achieves seeks to address poverty and illiteracy by equipping non-English speaking adults and young children with English literacy and life skills to promote self-sufficiency and the overall well-being of the students, their families, and the greater community. Programs include Adult English Literacy, Early Childhood Education, and Student Support Services. Increased literacy leads to higher academic outcomes, improved job opportunities, and greater confidence to achieve personal goals.
Literacy Instruction for Texas enhances lives and strengthens communities by teaching adults to read. In order to address employment needs, low-literate adults need access to educational opportunities that provide pathways to living wage jobs. Through its core literacy education programs, enhanced workforce development initiatives, and strategic partnerships with businesses and nonprofits, Literacy Instruction for Texas will provide a trajectory for Dallas adults to meet their career, income, educational, and personal goals each year.
The Affordable and Accessible Adult Health Care program does just that for patients at Los Barrios Unidos Health Center, located in the underserved Oak Cliff neighborhood. An internal medicine doctor provides preventative, check-up, and sick/well visits to all their adult patients no matter their ability to pay. There are several improved outcomes that include increased check-up/well visits, ongoing care for patients, especially those with chronic conditions, and the number of patients in control of their diabetes.
Lumin Education’s B4Six Parent Education Program includes four key components: home visits, group connections, screening, and resource linkage. The goal is to facilitate school readiness for parents and children. Parents gain an understanding of how their children learn and grow, while their children demonstrate progress toward school readiness goals in five areas of development. They measure progress through family-centered assessment, ongoing child assessment, and goal setting.
Meals on Wheels Collin County provides hot, nutritious, daily meals and personal contact for homebound, elderly or disabled Collin County residents. Meals on Wheels Collin County serves meals to clients through both the Home Delivered Meals program and meals provided to congregate sites, such as senior centers.
The Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance Flex Fund pays for minor but impactful expenditures, that can help an individual or family end their homelessness.
Metrocare proposes to increase outpatient mental health treatment in Dallas County using the Assertive Community Treatment model. Through this effort, a reduction in hospitalizations, homelessness, and involvement in the criminal justice system will be achieved. This model is proven to increase access to care, improve overall health, and produce greater social outcomes. By providing these services, the overall health care costs in Dallas County will be reduced for this high-utilizer population.
Metrocrest Bundled Services Program’s goal is to provide basic needs, including emergency assistance and food, to families and seniors in crisis combined with Workforce Development and Financial Capability. By using a bundled services approach, these programs deliver the basic resources to meet immediate needs and provide tools and resources for families to get out of poverty and stabilize.
Mi Escuelita’s Early Childhood Education program serves low income and at-risk children ages 2 ½ to 5 years old. Many of these students’ primary language is not English. The objective is to ensure that all Mi Escuelita children begin kindergarten capable of achieving academic success in an English-speaking school system.
Miles of Freedom’s Re-entry Assistance Program assists formerly incarcerated individuals from the South Dallas community in securing and retaining livable wage employment. Program activities include case management, job-readiness training, job skills training, and employment.
The Multicultural Empowerment Program provides culturally and linguistically competent services including case management, counseling, medical advocacy, emergency shelter, and legal services. The program aims to increase the health and safety of refugees and immigrant survivors of trauma and persecution across the Dallas region by increasing their knowledge of available resources, informing them of their rights, and increasing their access to services.
My Possibilities program’s goal is to promote greater independence and enhanced quality of life for adults with disabilities and raise awareness about their capacity to work in inclusive jobs. Activities include personal training for adults to reduce health risk factors, increase strength and physical endurance, and improve balance and mobility. The program also assists clients in obtaining jobs paying at or above minimum wage and provides coaching support to clients to improve long term job retention.
The New Friends New Life four-phase, trauma-informed recovery program includes case management, counseling, and economic empowerment components to shepherd members from victim to restoration, empowerment, and self-sufficiency. The New Friends New Life Women’s Program provides a road-map for members to access wrap-around services free of cost. Members are required to meet the goals set for them in order to be promoted to the next phase.
Nexus Continuum of Care’s program goal is to meet the need of low-income women, mothers with children, and teens for accessible, high quality, effective substance abuse treatment and for the removal of barriers that are common for women seeking substance abuse treatment. These barriers include the high cost of treatment, the need for childcare, the need for treatment throughout a pregnancy including the third trimester, and the prevalence of treatment programs designed for men.
North Dallas Shared Ministries’ goal is to help low-income persons assume, through a multi-disciplinary approach, responsibility for their lives to the degree they are able by providing appropriate emergency assistance, programs to help them achieve long-term stability, and programs promoting wellness and financial independence. Key programs include: food to prevent hunger, financial help to prevent homelessness/utilities disconnect, preventive and primary medical/dental care, mental health care, English Second Language classes, employment assistance, and more.
NPower seeks to “future-proof” the students they serve by training for careers of today and for those on the horizon and reinforcing the value of life-long learning. NPower trains under-resourced military veterans and military spouses through their free Tech Fundamentals and Cybersecurity programs. Students become employed professionals through social support services, certifications, internships, job placement, and ongoing career support.
Parkland’s Behavioral Health Expansion Program provides critical support to enhance substance abuse and counseling services for the highest risk patients. The program goals are to: help substance abuse patients continue in recovery by building a continuum of care and link to resources both in and out of the hospital and provide counseling services for victims of trauma, domestic abuse, and sexual assault in neighborhoods where those resources do not exist.
PediPlace is a nonprofit pediatric healthcare practice for children aged birth-18 years of age who are uninsured or receive Medicaid/CHIP benefits. Primary care services include: treatment of illnesses, preventive care including immunizations, hearing and vision screenings, treatment of asthma and other chronic illnesses, behavioral health screenings to check for signs of depression and/or mental illness, referrals for specialized care, and newborn parent health and child safety education.
Per Scholas provides entry-level IT training to unemployed or underemployed adults.
Prism Health North Texas provides high-quality HIV medical care to individuals regardless of their income or insured status. The agency strategically locates its clinics in marginalized communities that are hardest hit by the HIV epidemic. Key program metrics include the percent of individuals achieving optimal HIV treatment, the number of individuals receiving ongoing care for this chronic condition, and the percent of individuals receiving preventative care.
Prison Entrepreneurship Program is recognized as one of the country’s most innovative responses to the growing incarceration crisis. The program has reduced recidivism and increased economic opportunity for incarcerated individuals through entrepreneurship training since 2004. In the program, participants undergo a strenuous business curriculum and intensive life skills training and character-building. Their comprehensive post-release services provide support to allow participants to succeed including housing, education, and encouragement.
Project Transformation North Texas provides educational summer programs to low-income children and youth, grades 1-12. The program components revolve around Project Transformation North Texas's four core program pillars: develop literacy, cultivate leadership, celebrate diversity, and serve community. With a focus on literacy development, participants read one-on-one with community volunteers over the summer months.
Out Teach increases teacher effectiveness and student engagement by building outdoor learning labs on low-income school campuses and training teachers to use them as tools for hands-on experiential learning.
Prevention Connection provides effective social-emotional learning programs to at-risk and homeless children and youth, which are proven to reduce substance use, promote pro-social positive attitudes, and prevent self-defeating behaviors including delinquency and violence. Through evidence-based support groups, character education, mentored arts programs, and educational summer learning experiences, caring adult role models are equipping children and youth to rise above the adversity they face.
Team Read, a high-quality, high-dosage tutoring program, uses individualized and small group instruction to help students in kindergarten through 5th grade reach grade level in reading. Readers 2 Leaders provides programs at their own site, at partner schools, and at community organizations.
Reading Partners helps struggling readers from low-income communities by recruiting and training dedicated community volunteers to provide one-on-one, individualized instruction in local public elementary schools.
The Dental Program, established in 1989, was the first of its kind targeted to People Living with HIV/AIDS. Today, the program provides free oral health care (e.g., diagnostic, preventive, therapeutic services) to People Living with HIV/AIDS and is one of the few dental programs in the eligible metropolitan area. The nutrition program operates the only food pantry and one of only two hot meals programs that specialize in meeting the nutritional needs of People Living with HIV/AIDS.
Richardson Adult Literacy Center's Career Bridge program propels adult English language learners towards good-paying careers using a holistic approach that combines traditional English as a Second Language instruction, employability skills development, career awareness education, a bridge to vocational training programs, and ongoing support.
Rockwall County Helping Hands provides emergency basic needs assistance and medical care to Rockwall County residents in crisis. Program activities such as providing comprehensive medical services through their Health Center, nutritious food through our food pantry, emergency items through our thrift store, financial assistance and information, and referral to connect individuals to other resources help their clients live healthy lives, gain stability, and build stronger futures.
ScholarShot offers hands-on academic management and mentoring, coupled with funding, to ensure their Scholars complete a career ready bachelor, associate, or vocational degree moving them beyond poverty. The unique approach of assigning full-time Academic Managers assures the Scholars receive continual degree planning, monitoring, guidance, and encouragement to stay on track and complete their degrees.
The Senior Source is a program for older adults who look for protection. The type of protection appropriate for each depends upon the situation. It may be protection from persons who have financially exploited the older adult, protection from having outlived one’s financial means, or protection from potential abuse and neglect.
Shared Housing Center provides transitional and permanent housing solutions for families and individuals, focusing on single female head of households, especially veterans with children and grandmothers raising grandchildren. They assist families to achieve housing stability, economic security, and vocational success through coaching, comprehensive services, and networks of support. The goal is to move families, especially those of color, out of poverty and homelessness through bridging the racial wealth divide.
After8toEducate is the first all-encompassing program to support homeless high school youth in Dallas. The three-pillar program, a collaborative with Dallas Independent School District (DISD), Promise House, CitySquare, and SVP Dallas, provides residential and support services and a Drop-In Center for students.
Society of St. Vincent de Paul alleviates the suffering of the poor with emergency assistance and systemic change programs. The pharmacy dispenses free prescriptions to the uninsured. The Mini-Loan Program retires predatory payday loans, replacing triple digit interest rate loans with 3% loans, provides financial coaching and after loan completion, bankability. Study Time provides after school educational support for K-8 children that increases reading.
The Budd Center leads The School Zone, an effective collaborative of nonprofits and K-12 schools, equipping them as powerful change agents in the lives of children in under-resourced communities by consolidating their resources into a data-driven joint effort focused on academics and social-emotional health.
Camp Sweeney provides educational and motivational activities to improve weight management skills and health through proper nutrition and exercise. The goal is to help children who are overweight, or obese, and at risk of developing diabetes, or who are already diabetic, lower their Body Mass Index (BMI) and empower them to increase control over and improve their health.
Step Up provides teen girls in under resourced neighborhoods with 4 years of curriculum-guided social and emotional skills development and access to information, opportunities, and resources that will help them envision and achieve their fullest potential. The goals are aligned with national and local strategic priorities for youth: increasing graduation rates to 90% by 2020, increasing enrollment and completion of post-secondary education, and preparing youth for the workforce.
Texas Muslim Women’s Foundation Peace in the Home Domestic Violence program takes a holistic approach to meeting Domestic Violence victims’ needs and provides free, evidence based, trauma informed, culturally specialized intervention and prevention/awareness services for communities and victims of Domestic Violence. While Texas Muslim Women’s Foundation is culturally specialized, their services are available to all.
The Commit Partnership seeks to improve educational outcomes for Dallas County children from cradle to career by pursuing systemic change within the Dallas County educational system through a collective impact model - facilitating an ecosystem of actors and organizations coming together around common desired outcomes through three coalitions: Early Matters Dallas, Dallas County Promise, and Best in Class.
The Concilio Strong Families, Strong Communities program utilizes weekly parent group sessions to educate parents on what their roles, rights, and responsibilities are in preparing their children for academic success while keeping their families healthy by establishing better eating habits and increasing physical activity. By partnering with parents, families become healthier and have greater access to opportunity.
The Salvation Army provides homeless prevention and recovery services for at-risk and homeless individuals and families. Prevention services include case management, financial education, and financial assistance to help those at risk of homelessness achieve and maintain stable housing. Recovery services include emergency and transitional shelter which provide those who are homeless with immediate access to shelter and basic needs, and individualized services to help end their homelessness.
The Transitional Shelter and Services for Homeless Persons program focuses on helping individuals and families along their path of overcoming homelessness. As a major symptom of poverty, homelessness can be difficult to overcome without four key factors: education, employment, a belief in one's future, and connections with others different than yourself. The four pillars of their program (case management, counseling, career development, and financial education) work together holistically to provide each willing client the opportunity for success.
The Turning Point provides a full complement of services to help individuals overcome all forms of sexual violence. These services are provided free of charge to allow access to proper care for survivors from any socioeconomic status. Services include a 24-hour crisis hotline, advocacy program, Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners, mental health support groups and individual counseling. They understand that the whole family is impacted and should be part of ongoing, effective care for the survivor.
The Warren Center understands that children with disabilities and their families need help and extra support in order to reach their full potential. Their professional team provides clients with individualized therapy-based care, family education, support services, and guidance to other needed services and resources. The Warren Center helps children to reach their developmental goals and empowers parents to become a confident advocate for their child.
Turtle Creek Manor provides substance abuse residential and outpatient treatment for adult men and women struggling with mental illness and addiction. Key program activities include screening and assessment, relapse prevention, individual and group counseling, and education. This program improves health and the quality of life across the community by decreasing substance/alcohol abuse.
Uplift’s Road to College provides individualized support and preparation in the college-going process for all Uplift students. Road to College focuses on academic, social, cultural, and financial readiness for college to ensure barriers do not impede student persistence and works closely with all Uplift students and families while building partnerships on college and university campuses in Texas and across the country.
VNA Meals on Wheels’ goal is to improve nutrition and provide social contact which reduces medical costs associated with malnutrition and isolation. VNA is fulfilling a basic food need in the community while enabling seniors to age with dignity in their homes. VNA Meals on Wheels provides hot, nutritious, home-delivered meals to homebound seniors with no reliable access to nutritious food or ability to prepare their own meals.
The Two-Generational Therapeutic Early Education and Family Support Services program goal is to break the cycle of homelessness and poverty for Dallas-area families with young children. Provision of high-quality, no-cost therapeutic services will ensure children are functioning at appropriates stages of development, parents are making strides toward achieving self-sufficiency, and client families are accessing consistent treatment services to improve mental health and increase stability.
Wilkinson Center transforms the lives of Dallas families by providing pathways to self-sufficiency with dignity and respect. Each year, individuals are served through a bundled services approach to alleviating poverty. Wilkinson Center provides households with food and income support; instructs adults in English Second Language and GED classes, job training, and financial education; and helps students attain their GED, and clients find jobs or advance in their current career.
Women in Need of Generous Support meets every woman where she is today, helping her discover the possibilities of what she can do and who she can become. Designed with her in mind, their programs empower her to have a healthy baby and family, build financial resiliency, advance in her career, or launch a business. Navigators coach and mentor her along her path helping her overcome obstacles along the way. In the end, she lifts up herself, her family, and the community.
Apprenti is a nationally registered tech apprenticeship program that provides 3 to 5-months of intensive training in apprenticable occupations ending in an industry-recognized certification and a one-year, paid apprenticeship with an employer. The program targets women, people of color, and veterans, providing them access to middle-skills tech careers that allow them to attain greater economic mobility.
Year Up Dallas/Fort Worth delivers a transformative year-long program to low-income, 18-24-year-old individuals in North Texas. In collaboration with El Centro College, their program combines technical and professional skills training in high-demand fields, full-time internships, wraparound support, an educational stipend, and up to 36 college credits.
The YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas addresses the education and health needs of southern Dallas residents through preschool, afterschool, a college/career readiness program, and a suite of health programs designed to build healthy habits in families, reduce childhood obesity, prevent diabetes, and lower blood pressure.
Young Women’s Preparatory Network understands that poverty, single-parent households, transience, and racial barriers can derail college aspirations for low-income students. The Young Women’s Preparatory Network To and Through College program is a year-round initiative that layers on extended-learning programs focused on academic rigor and the Young Women’s Preparatory Network pillars of College Readiness, Leadership, and Wellness Life Skills resulting in higher standardized test scores, high school graduation and college acceptance, and increased college persistence and graduation.
Pathway to Education programs are designed around foundational skills needed to be capable, contributing members of the community. Programs like PREP Dog Training and Horticulture Therapy teach important lessons in leadership, empathy and patience. Their Culinary and Career Readiness Programs provide real world skills and job preparedness training while providing hope and strengthening character. Their Welding program arms participants with the skills essential to success in the manufacturing industry.
After-School All-Stars provides comprehensive after-school programs that keep children safe and help them succeed in school and life. The goals for All-Stars are that they grow up safe and healthy, graduate high school and go on to college, find careers they love, and give back to their communities. We achieve this by identifying and fueling our students’ individual passions, tying their interests to tailored academic support, enrichment, and health and fitness activities after-school.
PCEP teaches low-income parents to stimulate their children's development from 0-3 and support their growth and success from early childhood to high school graduation. This nine-month bilingual program provides weekly four-hour parent classes, onsite childcare/education, home visits, and supportive services. Outcomes include improved parenting knowledge/decisions and increased early childhood development.
Bachman Lake Together is a community initiative that nurtures families committed to raising young children who begin school ready for kindergarten. This involves readiness from a physical, emotional, social, and cognitive perspective. Bachman Lake Together takes a collective impact approach to kindergarten readiness by convening families, community members, local schools, and service providers to create a greater impact that any one stakeholder could have alone.
Beacon Hill Preparatory Institute’s Math and Reading Tutoring Program for Students in Pre-K - 12th grade prepares and equips students, and schools, from under-served areas to meet and exceed academic grade-level requirements. By using a low student-to-teacher ratio, the proven Gideon curriculum, professional staff, and trained volunteers they ensure students in Southern Dallas and the surrounding communities catch up, keep up and stay ahead to prepare them for college and beyond.
Big Brothers Big Sisters provides 1-to-1 evidence-based mentoring to youth. A positive adult role model can defend, ignite, and encourage a child’s potential and help them overcome challenges to their success. The Big Brother Big Sisters model, from initial interviews to matching and beyond, is strategically designed and supported to suit each child’s unique needs. Youth receive holistic support to achieve educational success; higher aspirations, greater confidence and better relationships; and avoid/reduce risky behaviors.
Dallas City of Learning targets young people from marginalized communities, activating a powerful network of partners to help close the opportunity gap. Dallas City of Learning connects youth with low- and no-cost educational experiences that cultivate creativity, build social-emotional skills and boost academic achievement. Through Dallas City of Learning’s learning pathways, young people engage in digital and in-person activities that spark their interest and feed their curiosity.
Project Learn reinforces the academic enrichment and school engagement of young people during the time they spend at Boys & Girls Clubs of Collin County. Club staff use all the areas and programs in the Club to create opportunities for high-yield learning activities including leisure reading, writing activities, discussions with knowledgeable adults, helping others, homework help, tutoring, and games that develop young people’s cognitive skills.
Academic Success’s goal is to ensure all Dallas County youth, no matter their income level or what zip code they live in, progress scholastically each year and graduate from high school on time, ready for post-secondary education or a career. Program activities include: homework assistance and tutoring, a math competition, personal finance, STEM, literacy interventions, college prep, and High Yield Activities (to supplement school curricula in alignment with Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards).
The Café Momentum internship program increases employment and decreases recidivism in Dallas area adjudicated teens through 12-month paid internships and job training set in a casual fine dining restaurant. As part of the wraparound care model, interns also receive case management support to re-enroll in an accredited education program, address critical housing, food, and medical needs, and access counseling with licensed professionals, among other services.
The Callier Center’s Early Childhood Listening and Language Program provides comprehensive audiology and speech-language services that positively impact developmental progress for young children diagnosed with hearing loss. The program allows these children the opportunity to function in a hearing world, increase their school readiness and potential for academic success, and improve their overall quality of life.
Catch Up & Read's goal is to meet demand by scaling their program across Dallas ISD. Catch Up & Read students participate in over 70 hours of targeted literacy intervention in order to make gains in literacy attainment. Catch Up & Read teachers train over 100 hours in literacy best practices in order to become stronger literacy instructors and interventionists.
ChildCareGroup provides holistic, high quality early education programs for young children and support services to their parents. Using the research-based Two Generation Approach, ChildCareGroup strives to break the cycle of generational poverty through direct early education programs and wrap-around services so families have what they need to move out of poverty. Outcomes of the programs are that children will be kindergarten-ready, families will improve self-sufficiency, and children and parents will be physically and mentally healthy.
The ScoutReach program goal is to prepare youth for success by instilling life skills and core values and developing confidence with short term outcomes of higher grades and grade completion rates. Key program activities include camping, advancement, training, monthly programs, and hands-on learning experiences in specialized career interests. Outcomes include positive interaction with an adult, youth demonstrate increased awareness of an interest in careers, and youth demonstrate increase in job readiness skills.
City Year's Whole School Whole Child program provides individualized, data-driven interventions to Dallas ISD students who need additional supports. They deploy diverse teams of AmeriCorps members to high-poverty schools across Dallas to support students in attendance, social emotional learning, and academics. They also facilitate after-school programming to help keep students engaged in the academic culture of their campus. The goal is to help students stay in school and on track to graduation.
The program goal is to equip K-12 students who are at-risk with the tools and resources to be successful in school, graduate ready for post-secondary achievement, and maintain social-emotional wellness throughout their lives. Through the provision of evidence-based, holistic, Integrated Student Supports, students facing barriers to success, including inequitable access to resources, will be provided direct services and supports to build resiliency and achieve success in school and in life.
Cornerstone Crossroads Academy is a private school with a mission to develop urban youth in South Dallas through transformative education. Program activities include academic instruction, case management, therapeutic counseling, and college and career counseling and support.
Cristo Rey Dallas serves students from low-income families by providing four years of rigorous academics, hands on business experiences, and comprehensive mental health services. The goal is to graduate students with the educational, professional, and social-emotional skills to persist through a four-year college degree and beyond, fulfilling the motto, “To and Through.” They are creating the next generation of leaders and learners.
Dallas Afterschool serves as their community’s backbone organization in the afterschool and summer learning space, providing coaching, training, curriculum, and resources to afterschool programs and staff members who teach low-income students in Dallas County. Through their Program Quality Initiative, they help free and low-cost afterschool and summer programs improve academic and social outcomes for all students, regardless of race, income, or zip code.
Education is Freedom increases college, career, and life readiness among underserved youth in Dallas ISD. Starting in middle school, Education is Freedom seeks to build, strengthen, and empower all students to achieve their post-secondary educational dreams. Through innovative programming and training, Education is Freedom creates a culture that supports college, career, and life readiness. Programming from middle school through high school allows Education is Freedom to provide a seamless service model that will help middle school and high school transitions.
Education Opens Doors equips students to realize their academic and professional potential by providing a comprehensive college knowledge program called Roadmap to Success beginning in middle school. They train teachers in traditional school settings to deliver a program that includes a ready-made curriculum and training resources to teach college and career knowledge and soft skills, ensuring that all students have access to a range of options for college and career success.
Relief and Opportunity Corps simultaneously decreases the high levels of food insecurity in the Dallas area and provides expanded learning opportunities for youth at free community-based Out of School Time education programs. They focus their efforts in areas with high concentrations of poverty, but ones historically underserved by social service agencies. By leveraging the resources of multiple agencies, they can reduce hunger for individuals and provide academic support to youth.
Family Compass’ overarching goal of their Child Abuse Prevention Services is to stop child abuse before it happens and keep children out of the child welfare system. They do this by offering a menu of services that range from community-based education and support to intensive, tailored in-home mentoring. As a result of parents completing the proven programs and implementing parenting best practices, the high-risk children they work with will not become system involved.
The Family Place Domestic Violence Program’s goal is to empower victims by providing safe housing, counseling, and skills that create independence while building community engagement and advocating for social change to stop family violence. Services offered include a 24-hotline, emergency shelter for women, men, and children, transitional housing, childcare, medical care, employment, legal services, individual and group therapy, supervised visitation, and batterers intervention services.
First3Years has a holistic approach to create a healing environment for infants and toddlers who have experienced trauma and neglect. This program supports policy and programmatic changes within foster care and other early childhood systems to become trauma informed. They educate stakeholders in current research to ensure decisions are developmentally informed. With the goal of positive lifetime outcomes for children, their programming provides wrap around services that empower families and improves communities.
The Girl Scout Leadership Experience engages girls to discover themselves, connect with others, and take action to make the world a better place. Girls develop life skills such as a strong sense of self, positive values, seeking challenges, learning from setbacks, forming and maintaining healthy relationships, and identifying and solving problems in their communities. Girls participate in girl-led educational opportunities, including STEM workshops, financial literacy, and outdoor experiences.
The Girls Inc. Experience provides girls ages 6-18 from low-income families with resources and support to become healthy, educated, and independent young women. Programming focuses on three core components: healthy living, academic enrichment and support, and life skills instruction focusing on serving the whole girl, in a pro-girl and girls only environment.
Heart House serves underprivileged refugee children with an innovative, culturally competent after-school and summer program using social-emotional learning to help build their confidence levels and improve academic performance. Established in 2000, Heart House provides life-changing services to refugee children and operates in the heart of the Vickery Meadow community of Dallas, a high-poverty area where 50 different languages are spoken.
The Family Empowerment Program follows a simple, proven formula, Eliminate Barriers + Equip Parents + Educate Children = Empower Working Families. They eliminate barriers like housing and childcare as working poor families look for work. They equip parents by providing career and financial coaching and educate children with daily homework assistance and tutoring to enhance math and reading skills.
Jubilee’s Out of School Time Program includes Afterschool and Summer Camp programs to provide year-round, experiential learning that measurably promotes academic and character development for hundreds of children in southeast Dallas each year. The program focuses on reading and math through highly trained, certified teachers alongside innovative technology and committed volunteers. Students also participate in social-emotional learning and whole-family learning activities throughout the year.
Junior Achievement of Dallas provides entrepreneurship, financial literacy, and work readiness education to predominately low to moderate income students in the North Texas area which is delivered by community and corporate volunteers. Junior Achievement programs provide students with the knowledge and tools they need to achieve their educational and career goals.
The KIPP Through College program is a vital, foundational component of their students’ college success. KIPP Through College seeks to ensure every student who walks through the KIPP Texas-DFW doors has the tools to succeed in college and in life. KIPP Through College supports their students attending the newly established KIPP Oak Cliff Academy as well as 8th grade completers attending high schools in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Literacy Achieves seeks to address poverty and illiteracy by equipping non-English speaking adults and young children with English literacy and life skills to promote self-sufficiency and the overall well-being of the students, their families, and the greater community. Programs include Adult English Literacy, Early Childhood Education, and Student Support Services. Increased literacy leads to higher academic outcomes, improved job opportunities, and greater confidence to achieve personal goals.
Lumin Education’s B4Six Parent Education Program includes four key components: home visits, group connections, screening, and resource linkage. The goal is to facilitate school readiness for parents and children. Parents gain an understanding of how their children learn and grow, while their children demonstrate progress toward school readiness goals in five areas of development. They measure progress through family-centered assessment, ongoing child assessment, and goal setting.
Mi Escuelita’s Early Childhood Education program serves low income and at-risk children ages 2 ½ to 5 years old. Many of these students’ primary language is not English. The objective is to ensure that all Mi Escuelita children begin kindergarten capable of achieving academic success in an English-speaking school system.
Project Transformation North Texas provides educational summer programs to low-income children and youth, grades 1-12. The program components revolve around Project Transformation North Texas's four core program pillars: develop literacy, cultivate leadership, celebrate diversity, and serve community. With a focus on literacy development, participants read one-on-one with community volunteers over the summer months.
Out Teach increases teacher effectiveness and student engagement by building outdoor learning labs on low-income school campuses and training teachers to use them as tools for hands-on experiential learning.
Prevention Connection provides effective social-emotional learning programs to at-risk and homeless children and youth, which are proven to reduce substance use, promote pro-social positive attitudes, and prevent self-defeating behaviors including delinquency and violence. Through evidence-based support groups, character education, mentored arts programs, and educational summer learning experiences, caring adult role models are equipping children and youth to rise above the adversity they face.
Team Read, a high-quality, high-dosage tutoring program, uses individualized and small group instruction to help students in kindergarten through 5th grade reach grade level in reading. Readers 2 Leaders provides programs at their own site, at partner schools, and at community organizations.
Reading Partners helps struggling readers from low-income communities by recruiting and training dedicated community volunteers to provide one-on-one, individualized instruction in local public elementary schools.
ScholarShot offers hands-on academic management and mentoring, coupled with funding, to ensure their Scholars complete a career ready bachelor, associate, or vocational degree moving them beyond poverty. The unique approach of assigning full-time Academic Managers assures the Scholars receive continual degree planning, monitoring, guidance, and encouragement to stay on track and complete their degrees.
Society of St. Vincent de Paul alleviates the suffering of the poor with emergency assistance and systemic change programs. The pharmacy dispenses free prescriptions to the uninsured. The Mini-Loan Program retires predatory payday loans, replacing triple digit interest rate loans with 3% loans, provides financial coaching and after loan completion, bankability. Study Time provides after school educational support for K-8 children that increases reading.
The Budd Center leads The School Zone, an effective collaborative of nonprofits and K-12 schools, equipping them as powerful change agents in the lives of children in under-resourced communities by consolidating their resources into a data-driven joint effort focused on academics and social-emotional health.
Step Up provides teen girls in under resourced neighborhoods with 4 years of curriculum-guided social and emotional skills development and access to information, opportunities, and resources that will help them envision and achieve their fullest potential. The goals are aligned with national and local strategic priorities for youth: increasing graduation rates to 90% by 2020, increasing enrollment and completion of post-secondary education, and preparing youth for the workforce.
The Commit Partnership seeks to improve educational outcomes for Dallas County children from cradle to career by pursuing systemic change within the Dallas County educational system through a collective impact model - facilitating an ecosystem of actors and organizations coming together around common desired outcomes through three coalitions: Early Matters Dallas, Dallas County Promise, and Best in Class.
The Concilio Strong Families, Strong Communities program utilizes weekly parent group sessions to educate parents on what their roles, rights, and responsibilities are in preparing their children for academic success while keeping their families healthy by establishing better eating habits and increasing physical activity. By partnering with parents, families become healthier and have greater access to opportunity.
The Warren Center understands that children with disabilities and their families need help and extra support in order to reach their full potential. Their professional team provides clients with individualized therapy-based care, family education, support services, and guidance to other needed services and resources. The Warren Center helps children to reach their developmental goals and empowers parents to become a confident advocate for their child.
Uplift’s Road to College provides individualized support and preparation in the college-going process for all Uplift students. Road to College focuses on academic, social, cultural, and financial readiness for college to ensure barriers do not impede student persistence and works closely with all Uplift students and families while building partnerships on college and university campuses in Texas and across the country.
The Two-Generational Therapeutic Early Education and Family Support Services program goal is to break the cycle of homelessness and poverty for Dallas-area families with young children. Provision of high-quality, no-cost therapeutic services will ensure children are functioning at appropriates stages of development, parents are making strides toward achieving self-sufficiency, and client families are accessing consistent treatment services to improve mental health and increase stability.
The YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas addresses the education and health needs of southern Dallas residents through preschool, afterschool, a college/career readiness program, and a suite of health programs designed to build healthy habits in families, reduce childhood obesity, prevent diabetes, and lower blood pressure.
Young Women’s Preparatory Network understands that poverty, single-parent households, transience, and racial barriers can derail college aspirations for low-income students. The Young Women’s Preparatory Network To and Through College program is a year-round initiative that layers on extended-learning programs focused on academic rigor and the Young Women’s Preparatory Network pillars of College Readiness, Leadership, and Wellness Life Skills resulting in higher standardized test scores, high school graduation and college acceptance, and increased college persistence and graduation.
Pathway to Education programs are designed around foundational skills needed to be capable, contributing members of the community. Programs like PREP Dog Training and Horticulture Therapy teach important lessons in leadership, empathy and patience. Their Culinary and Career Readiness Programs provide real world skills and job preparedness training while providing hope and strengthening character. Their Welding program arms participants with the skills essential to success in the manufacturing industry.
Aberg Center for Literacy provides programs in English fluency classes, high school equivalency/GED preparation, and career track to build the foundation for successful careers for adult learners.
Achieve’s Workforce Development Program provides training and employment services for youth and adults with disabilities so that they can develop essential work readiness skills, achieve work success, escape poverty, and live a life of dignity and self-sufficiency. Services include job readiness training, vocational adjustment training, job placement, job skills training, employment retention services, case management, computer lab/assistance, transportation, and employer education.
Agape Housing 4 Hope helps homeless women, moms, and their children move from crisis, poverty, and abuse to economic and emotional stability. The program provides transitional housing, counseling, workforce education and scholarships, child care and development, financial education and coaching transportation assistance, and accountability-based casework.
Back on Track's goal is to support a family's obtaining or returning to financial stability. The key component to the success of this initiative is increased wages. In order to accomplish this, we invest financially by removing all threats of eviction and or utility disconnection. This gives the family the peace of mind to engage in our wage increasing strategies that include employment assistance, career coaching, and financial coaching.
Dallas Coalition for Hunger Solutions was created in 2012, chaired by Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson and spearheaded by the Texas Hunger Initiative, the North Texas Food Bank, and other nonprofits and religious organizations. Through five action teams, they bring together community leaders who are engaged in the work of addressing poverty and hunger to act in a collaborative setting. The mission is to empower residents to gain equal access to healthy food.
Bonton Farms serves Bonton, one of the most neglected, impoverished communities in South Dallas. Programs include food and nutrition, workforce development, transportation, housing, mentoring, and education. The goal is to provide skills-building, basic needs, and compassion for Bonton residents who have no other place to turn. Through their work, individuals will gain the resources and support they need to lift themselves and their families out of poverty.
Project Learn reinforces the academic enrichment and school engagement of young people during the time they spend at Boys & Girls Clubs of Collin County. Club staff use all the areas and programs in the Club to create opportunities for high-yield learning activities including leisure reading, writing activities, discussions with knowledgeable adults, helping others, homework help, tutoring, and games that develop young people’s cognitive skills.
Academic Success’s goal is to ensure all Dallas County youth, no matter their income level or what zip code they live in, progress scholastically each year and graduate from high school on time, ready for post-secondary education or a career. Program activities include: homework assistance and tutoring, a math competition, personal finance, STEM, literacy interventions, college prep, and High Yield Activities (to supplement school curricula in alignment with Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards).
The Café Momentum internship program increases employment and decreases recidivism in Dallas area adjudicated teens through 12-month paid internships and job training set in a casual fine dining restaurant. As part of the wraparound care model, interns also receive case management support to re-enroll in an accredited education program, address critical housing, food, and medical needs, and access counseling with licensed professionals, among other services.
Poverty Alleviation works directly with low-income, high-need individuals and families, providing integrated services to help move those in crisis and trapped in the cycle of poverty toward self-sufficiency and financial stability. The program’s activities align with the proven Working Families Success model of integrated services developed by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, namely income supports (financial assistance, food, in-kind); financial education; and job placement services.
The Medicaid/CHIP Outreach Program at Children’s Health increases access to high-quality health care by connecting local families with the resources they need to enroll in and maintain health insurance coverage. With funding from United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, Children’s Health plans to expand and enhance its Medicaid and CHIP outreach in North Texas, responding to the ever-increasing pediatric population across North Texas and associated barriers to accessible health care.
Christian Community Action’s Family Assistance Program has a simple objective: moving people into a position of self-sufficiency. Christian Community Action operates an inclusive program that allows case managers to build a customized continuum of services that transform lives and addresses the specific need of each client. Clients are guided through the three phases of the program; rescue, relief and restoration in order to live out our value of providing a hand-up and not a hand-out program.
CitySquare’s Workforce Development program connects neighbors and partners to the transformative power of work, community, and opportunity. Inclusive of income supports and financial empowerment, CitySquare Workforce Development works to help people secure jobs, transition out of poverty, and achieve stability through four pathways: hospitality training, construction training, barista training, and career readiness. The employment goal helps neighbors obtain jobs with a wage of $11+ per hour, to improve their quality of life.
The Harmony Empowerment Network Program is a self-sufficiency program designed to reach individuals in a cohort group, ages 18 to 45, who are unemployed or underemployed. The program provides a holistic approach through intense case management using assessments, action plans, resources, and wraparound services customized for what a participant must have to obtain employment, education, or career advancement leading to livable wages.
Cornerstone Crossroads Academy is a private school with a mission to develop urban youth in South Dallas through transformative education. Program activities include academic instruction, case management, therapeutic counseling, and college and career counseling and support.
Cristo Rey Dallas serves students from low-income families by providing four years of rigorous academics, hands on business experiences, and comprehensive mental health services. The goal is to graduate students with the educational, professional, and social-emotional skills to persist through a four-year college degree and beyond, fulfilling the motto, “To and Through.” They are creating the next generation of leaders and learners.
Dallas Afterschool serves as their community’s backbone organization in the afterschool and summer learning space, providing coaching, training, curriculum, and resources to afterschool programs and staff members who teach low-income students in Dallas County. Through their Program Quality Initiative, they help free and low-cost afterschool and summer programs improve academic and social outcomes for all students, regardless of race, income, or zip code.
Denton County Friends of the Family increases safety and healing for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault by providing counseling, advocacy, emergency shelter, crisis line, legal services, and transitional housing.
Education is Freedom increases college, career, and life readiness among underserved youth in Dallas ISD. Starting in middle school, Education is Freedom seeks to build, strengthen, and empower all students to achieve their post-secondary educational dreams. Through innovative programming and training, Education is Freedom creates a culture that supports college, career, and life readiness. Programming from middle school through high school allows Education is Freedom to provide a seamless service model that will help middle school and high school transitions.
Relief and Opportunity Corps simultaneously decreases the high levels of food insecurity in the Dallas area and provides expanded learning opportunities for youth at free community-based Out of School Time education programs. They focus their efforts in areas with high concentrations of poverty, but ones historically underserved by social service agencies. By leveraging the resources of multiple agencies, they can reduce hunger for individuals and provide academic support to youth.
Family Gateway offers the only low-barrier emergency shelter for families with children experiencing homelessness in Dallas County that will accept a family of any kind and keep them together. They use an assessment-based approach to find families who can be served outside of shelter and then coordinate across family-serving shelters to maximize space. While in shelter, adults are provided with housing-focused intensive case management and children are stabilized with day care and school enrollment.
The Family Place Domestic Violence Program’s goal is to empower victims by providing safe housing, counseling, and skills that create independence while building community engagement and advocating for social change to stop family violence. Services offered include a 24-hotline, emergency shelter for women, men, and children, transitional housing, childcare, medical care, employment, legal services, individual and group therapy, supervised visitation, and batterers intervention services.
Foundation Communities’ Dallas Community Tax Center program is the largest Volunteer Income Tax Assistance provider in North Texas. Dallas Community Tax Center’s free tax prep sites help families earning $58,000 or less per year maximize tax time refunds, access valuable tax credits such as Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit and connect families with support services.
Dallas Frequent Users System Enhancement Project places case management navigators at key locations in Dallas County to assist frequent utilizers of public services in securing housing. Navigators identify frequent users of jails, shelters, hospitals, and/or other emergency services and seek to improve their lives through affordable housing, mental health care, and/or substance abuse treatment which stabilizes them and reduces returns to jail, homelessness, reliance on emergency services, and improves overall quality of life.
Good Jobs delivers integrated workforce development, financial capability, and advancement activities for low-income individuals through job creation, innovative partnerships with employers, and focused job placement and retention services. They leverage partnerships with colleges and employers to train and place clients into jobs that will pay a normal standard of living wage. The goal is to serve many individuals that result in a trained workforce and increases employment numbers.
Inspiring Tomorrow’s Leaders, in partnership with Allstate Insurance and State Farm, developed the Flagship Insurance Leadership Program to provide a pipeline of qualified candidates to fill employment gaps in the insurance industry. Flagship Insurance Leadership Program includes 126 hours of coursework to prepare clients to achieve the Texas Property-Casualty License. After course completion, Inspiring Tomorrow’s Leaders provides clients with job placement services.
The Family Empowerment Program follows a simple, proven formula, Eliminate Barriers + Equip Parents + Educate Children = Empower Working Families. They eliminate barriers like housing and childcare as working poor families look for work. They equip parents by providing career and financial coaching and educate children with daily homework assistance and tutoring to enhance math and reading skills.
The Irving Cares Emergency Assistance Program provides resources such as food, information, referrals, and emergency financial assistance with a housing payment, a utility payment, limited prescription assistance, and bus passes for work. Services are delivered through two different pathways: the Invest in Yourself Initiative (preferred), or the traditional Irving Cares model.
Jewish Family Service’s fundamental “wraparound” approach to service delivery is to assess and address all issues that may be impacting an individual’s emotional well-being and their ability to achieve and maintain self-sufficiency. All services are interrelated, and key program activities are focused in the areas of mental health, employment and financial stability, and basic needs.
Literacy Achieves seeks to address poverty and illiteracy by equipping non-English speaking adults and young children with English literacy and life skills to promote self-sufficiency and the overall well-being of the students, their families, and the greater community. Programs include Adult English Literacy, Early Childhood Education, and Student Support Services. Increased literacy leads to higher academic outcomes, improved job opportunities, and greater confidence to achieve personal goals.
Literacy Instruction for Texas enhances lives and strengthens communities by teaching adults to read. In order to address employment needs, low-literate adults need access to educational opportunities that provide pathways to living wage jobs. Through its core literacy education programs, enhanced workforce development initiatives, and strategic partnerships with businesses and nonprofits, Literacy Instruction for Texas will provide a trajectory for Dallas adults to meet their career, income, educational, and personal goals each year.
Meals on Wheels Collin County provides hot, nutritious, daily meals and personal contact for homebound, elderly or disabled Collin County residents. Meals on Wheels Collin County serves meals to clients through both the Home Delivered Meals program and meals provided to congregate sites, such as senior centers.
The Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance Flex Fund pays for minor but impactful expenditures, that can help an individual or family end their homelessness.
Metrocrest Bundled Services Program’s goal is to provide basic needs, including emergency assistance and food, to families and seniors in crisis combined with Workforce Development and Financial Capability. By using a bundled services approach, these programs deliver the basic resources to meet immediate needs and provide tools and resources for families to get out of poverty and stabilize.
Miles of Freedom’s Re-entry Assistance Program assists formerly incarcerated individuals from the South Dallas community in securing and retaining livable wage employment. Program activities include case management, job-readiness training, job skills training, and employment.
My Possibilities program’s goal is to promote greater independence and enhanced quality of life for adults with disabilities and raise awareness about their capacity to work in inclusive jobs. Activities include personal training for adults to reduce health risk factors, increase strength and physical endurance, and improve balance and mobility. The program also assists clients in obtaining jobs paying at or above minimum wage and provides coaching support to clients to improve long term job retention.
The New Friends New Life four-phase, trauma-informed recovery program includes case management, counseling, and economic empowerment components to shepherd members from victim to restoration, empowerment, and self-sufficiency. The New Friends New Life Women’s Program provides a road-map for members to access wrap-around services free of cost. Members are required to meet the goals set for them in order to be promoted to the next phase.
North Dallas Shared Ministries’ goal is to help low-income persons assume, through a multi-disciplinary approach, responsibility for their lives to the degree they are able by providing appropriate emergency assistance, programs to help them achieve long-term stability, and programs promoting wellness and financial independence. Key programs include: food to prevent hunger, financial help to prevent homelessness/utilities disconnect, preventive and primary medical/dental care, mental health care, English Second Language classes, employment assistance, and more.
NPower seeks to “future-proof” the students they serve by training for careers of today and for those on the horizon and reinforcing the value of life-long learning. NPower trains under-resourced military veterans and military spouses through their free Tech Fundamentals and Cybersecurity programs. Students become employed professionals through social support services, certifications, internships, job placement, and ongoing career support.
Per Scholas provides entry-level IT training to unemployed or underemployed adults.
Prison Entrepreneurship Program is recognized as one of the country’s most innovative responses to the growing incarceration crisis. The program has reduced recidivism and increased economic opportunity for incarcerated individuals through entrepreneurship training since 2004. In the program, participants undergo a strenuous business curriculum and intensive life skills training and character-building. Their comprehensive post-release services provide support to allow participants to succeed including housing, education, and encouragement.
The Dental Program, established in 1989, was the first of its kind targeted to People Living with HIV/AIDS. Today, the program provides free oral health care (e.g., diagnostic, preventive, therapeutic services) to People Living with HIV/AIDS and is one of the few dental programs in the eligible metropolitan area. The nutrition program operates the only food pantry and one of only two hot meals programs that specialize in meeting the nutritional needs of People Living with HIV/AIDS.
Richardson Adult Literacy Center's Career Bridge program propels adult English language learners towards good-paying careers using a holistic approach that combines traditional English as a Second Language instruction, employability skills development, career awareness education, a bridge to vocational training programs, and ongoing support.
Rockwall County Helping Hands provides emergency basic needs assistance and medical care to Rockwall County residents in crisis. Program activities such as providing comprehensive medical services through their Health Center, nutritious food through our food pantry, emergency items through our thrift store, financial assistance and information, and referral to connect individuals to other resources help their clients live healthy lives, gain stability, and build stronger futures.
ScholarShot offers hands-on academic management and mentoring, coupled with funding, to ensure their Scholars complete a career ready bachelor, associate, or vocational degree moving them beyond poverty. The unique approach of assigning full-time Academic Managers assures the Scholars receive continual degree planning, monitoring, guidance, and encouragement to stay on track and complete their degrees.
The Senior Source is a program for older adults who look for protection. The type of protection appropriate for each depends upon the situation. It may be protection from persons who have financially exploited the older adult, protection from having outlived one’s financial means, or protection from potential abuse and neglect.
Shared Housing Center provides transitional and permanent housing solutions for families and individuals, focusing on single female head of households, especially veterans with children and grandmothers raising grandchildren. They assist families to achieve housing stability, economic security, and vocational success through coaching, comprehensive services, and networks of support. The goal is to move families, especially those of color, out of poverty and homelessness through bridging the racial wealth divide.
After8toEducate is the first all-encompassing program to support homeless high school youth in Dallas. The three-pillar program, a collaborative with Dallas Independent School District (DISD), Promise House, CitySquare, and SVP Dallas, provides residential and support services and a Drop-In Center for students.
Society of St. Vincent de Paul alleviates the suffering of the poor with emergency assistance and systemic change programs. The pharmacy dispenses free prescriptions to the uninsured. The Mini-Loan Program retires predatory payday loans, replacing triple digit interest rate loans with 3% loans, provides financial coaching and after loan completion, bankability. Study Time provides after school educational support for K-8 children that increases reading.
The Concilio Strong Families, Strong Communities program utilizes weekly parent group sessions to educate parents on what their roles, rights, and responsibilities are in preparing their children for academic success while keeping their families healthy by establishing better eating habits and increasing physical activity. By partnering with parents, families become healthier and have greater access to opportunity.
The Salvation Army provides homeless prevention and recovery services for at-risk and homeless individuals and families. Prevention services include case management, financial education, and financial assistance to help those at risk of homelessness achieve and maintain stable housing. Recovery services include emergency and transitional shelter which provide those who are homeless with immediate access to shelter and basic needs, and individualized services to help end their homelessness.
The Transitional Shelter and Services for Homeless Persons program focuses on helping individuals and families along their path of overcoming homelessness. As a major symptom of poverty, homelessness can be difficult to overcome without four key factors: education, employment, a belief in one's future, and connections with others different than yourself. The four pillars of their program (case management, counseling, career development, and financial education) work together holistically to provide each willing client the opportunity for success.
The Warren Center understands that children with disabilities and their families need help and extra support in order to reach their full potential. Their professional team provides clients with individualized therapy-based care, family education, support services, and guidance to other needed services and resources. The Warren Center helps children to reach their developmental goals and empowers parents to become a confident advocate for their child.
VNA Meals on Wheels’ goal is to improve nutrition and provide social contact which reduces medical costs associated with malnutrition and isolation. VNA is fulfilling a basic food need in the community while enabling seniors to age with dignity in their homes. VNA Meals on Wheels provides hot, nutritious, home-delivered meals to homebound seniors with no reliable access to nutritious food or ability to prepare their own meals.
The Two-Generational Therapeutic Early Education and Family Support Services program goal is to break the cycle of homelessness and poverty for Dallas-area families with young children. Provision of high-quality, no-cost therapeutic services will ensure children are functioning at appropriates stages of development, parents are making strides toward achieving self-sufficiency, and client families are accessing consistent treatment services to improve mental health and increase stability.
Wilkinson Center transforms the lives of Dallas families by providing pathways to self-sufficiency with dignity and respect. Each year, individuals are served through a bundled services approach to alleviating poverty. Wilkinson Center provides households with food and income support; instructs adults in English Second Language and GED classes, job training, and financial education; and helps students attain their GED, and clients find jobs or advance in their current career.
Women in Need of Generous Support meets every woman where she is today, helping her discover the possibilities of what she can do and who she can become. Designed with her in mind, their programs empower her to have a healthy baby and family, build financial resiliency, advance in her career, or launch a business. Navigators coach and mentor her along her path helping her overcome obstacles along the way. In the end, she lifts up herself, her family, and the community.
Apprenti is a nationally registered tech apprenticeship program that provides 3 to 5-months of intensive training in apprenticable occupations ending in an industry-recognized certification and a one-year, paid apprenticeship with an employer. The program targets women, people of color, and veterans, providing them access to middle-skills tech careers that allow them to attain greater economic mobility.
Year Up Dallas/Fort Worth delivers a transformative year-long program to low-income, 18-24-year-old individuals in North Texas. In collaboration with El Centro College, their program combines technical and professional skills training in high-demand fields, full-time internships, wraparound support, an educational stipend, and up to 36 college credits.
Pathway to Education programs are designed around foundational skills needed to be capable, contributing members of the community. Programs like PREP Dog Training and Horticulture Therapy teach important lessons in leadership, empathy and patience. Their Culinary and Career Readiness Programs provide real world skills and job preparedness training while providing hope and strengthening character. Their Welding program arms participants with the skills essential to success in the manufacturing industry.
Agape Housing 4 Hope helps homeless women, moms, and their children move from crisis, poverty, and abuse to economic and emotional stability. The program provides transitional housing, counseling, workforce education and scholarships, child care and development, financial education and coaching transportation assistance, and accountability-based casework.
Baylor Scott & White Health and Wellness Center provides uninsured/underinsured individuals with access to primary care, evidence-based healthy lifestyle and disease management programs, low-cost produce sold at weekly farm stands, and physical activity at the Juanita J. Craft recreation center in southern Dallas. The Healthy Cities Program scales components of these programs to other Dallas sites.
Dallas Coalition for Hunger Solutions was created in 2012, chaired by Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson and spearheaded by the Texas Hunger Initiative, the North Texas Food Bank, and other nonprofits and religious organizations. Through five action teams, they bring together community leaders who are engaged in the work of addressing poverty and hunger to act in a collaborative setting. The mission is to empower residents to gain equal access to healthy food.
Bonton Farms serves Bonton, one of the most neglected, impoverished communities in South Dallas. Programs include food and nutrition, workforce development, transportation, housing, mentoring, and education. The goal is to provide skills-building, basic needs, and compassion for Bonton residents who have no other place to turn. Through their work, individuals will gain the resources and support they need to lift themselves and their families out of poverty.
Project Learn reinforces the academic enrichment and school engagement of young people during the time they spend at Boys & Girls Clubs of Collin County. Club staff use all the areas and programs in the Club to create opportunities for high-yield learning activities including leisure reading, writing activities, discussions with knowledgeable adults, helping others, homework help, tutoring, and games that develop young people’s cognitive skills.
CASA of Collin County trains and supports volunteers who are appointed by Judges as Guardian ad litem and serve as advocates for children placed into foster care due to abuse and neglect. CASA volunteers develop a trusting relationship with each child, conduct independent investigations, and advocate for the child’s best interest within the legal system. The goal is to serve 100% of Collin County foster children to ensure that they receive the services needed and find a safe and permanent home.
CASA of Denton County volunteers serve as Guardian ad litem and as advocates for children placed into the foster care system due to abuse and neglect throughout their court process. They will get to know the child and maintain contact with others on the case to ensure the child's needs are met. These volunteers speak directly to the court about their recommendations with the goal of a safe, stable home for the child.
Catch Up & Read's goal is to meet demand by scaling their program across Dallas ISD. Catch Up & Read students participate in over 70 hours of targeted literacy intervention in order to make gains in literacy attainment. Catch Up & Read teachers train over 100 hours in literacy best practices in order to become stronger literacy instructors and interventionists.
Child and Family Guidance Centers provide adults and children with serious mental illnesses with an intensive continuum of comprehensive, integrated, culturally competent mental health services and support proven to minimize the disability's negative impact on current and future life outcomes and improve social and educational success. The program improves individual and family quality of life through access to mental health care based on proven measurement processes and instrumentation.
Children First Counseling Center provides affordable counseling services to adults, teens, and children. Most are from low-income households and have suffered from abuse or neglect. Play Therapy is provided for the youngest clients so that healing and early intervention can begin as early as age 3. The program has a long history of success with most clients achieving positive improvement on an evidence-based scale of functioning. Services are provided in English and Spanish.
Children’s Advocacy Center for Denton County coordinates the investigation and prosecution of severe child abuse cases (severe physical abuse, sexual abuse, witnesses to death or violence) for law enforcement, Child Protective Services, and the district attorney's office through forensic interviews, case coordination, medical evaluations, therapy, and family advocacy. The goal is to ensure that every child who makes an outcry of abuse receives the necessary services by providing case coordination and collaboration between service providers.
The Children's Advocacy Center for Rockwall County provides a safe, secure, confidential, and child-friendly environment through which their Multidisciplinary Team (law enforcement, Child Protective Services, medical and mental health professionals, District Attorney's office, and Children’s Advocacy Center staff) develops strategies to restore the lives of children and non-offending family members or caregivers. They strive to ensure safety, pursue justice, and foster healing for child victims of abuse that reside in Rockwall County.
The Victim Discovery and Treatment program’s goal is to ensure that all victims of child abuse in Collin County are provided with a safe environment to share their story and that victims and non-offending family members have access to quality mental health care that helps them cope with the trauma caused by abuse.
The Medicaid/CHIP Outreach Program at Children’s Health increases access to high-quality health care by connecting local families with the resources they need to enroll in and maintain health insurance coverage. With funding from United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, Children’s Health plans to expand and enhance its Medicaid and CHIP outreach in North Texas, responding to the ever-increasing pediatric population across North Texas and associated barriers to accessible health care.
The program goal is to equip K-12 students who are at-risk with the tools and resources to be successful in school, graduate ready for post-secondary achievement, and maintain social-emotional wellness throughout their lives. Through the provision of evidence-based, holistic, Integrated Student Supports, students facing barriers to success, including inequitable access to resources, will be provided direct services and supports to build resiliency and achieve success in school and in life.
The SafetyNet Project builds on existing services to bring Mental Health First Aid to their school partners and expand broad-base community training and engagement. Through this project, Mental Health First Aid trainings will be provided to non-partner schools, other organizations, and the community. Funding will support expansion within current partnerships in Dallas and Collin counties with potential expansion into Rockwall County.
The Harmony Empowerment Network Program is a self-sufficiency program designed to reach individuals in a cohort group, ages 18 to 45, who are unemployed or underemployed. The program provides a holistic approach through intense case management using assessments, action plans, resources, and wraparound services customized for what a participant must have to obtain employment, education, or career advancement leading to livable wages.
Cornerstone Crossroads Academy is a private school with a mission to develop urban youth in South Dallas through transformative education. Program activities include academic instruction, case management, therapeutic counseling, and college and career counseling and support.
Cristo Rey Dallas serves students from low-income families by providing four years of rigorous academics, hands on business experiences, and comprehensive mental health services. The goal is to graduate students with the educational, professional, and social-emotional skills to persist through a four-year college degree and beyond, fulfilling the motto, “To and Through.” They are creating the next generation of leaders and learners.
Dallas Afterschool serves as their community’s backbone organization in the afterschool and summer learning space, providing coaching, training, curriculum, and resources to afterschool programs and staff members who teach low-income students in Dallas County. Through their Program Quality Initiative, they help free and low-cost afterschool and summer programs improve academic and social outcomes for all students, regardless of race, income, or zip code.
Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center coordinates the investigation of criminal child abuse cases in a seamless, collaborative process. They facilitate a coordinated approach to child abuse cases that results in more successful investigation and prosecution outcomes and provides a less traumatic response to child victims and families. Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center serves children and their non-offending family members through their core programs: Family Advocacy, Forensic Interview and Therapy Programs.
The Dallas Services Vision Clinic works to increase access to essential vision healthcare by providing comprehensive eye exams and prescription eyeglasses to individuals with Medicaid, Medicare, other publicly funded programs and those individuals who are uninsured or medically at-risk. Strategic community outreach will ensure that their partners are aware of this opportunity for quality eye healthcare.
Denton County Friends of the Family increases safety and healing for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault by providing counseling, advocacy, emergency shelter, crisis line, legal services, and transitional housing.
Family Compass’ overarching goal of their Child Abuse Prevention Services is to stop child abuse before it happens and keep children out of the child welfare system. They do this by offering a menu of services that range from community-based education and support to intensive, tailored in-home mentoring. As a result of parents completing the proven programs and implementing parenting best practices, the high-risk children they work with will not become system involved.
The Family Place Domestic Violence Program’s goal is to empower victims by providing safe housing, counseling, and skills that create independence while building community engagement and advocating for social change to stop family violence. Services offered include a 24-hotline, emergency shelter for women, men, and children, transitional housing, childcare, medical care, employment, legal services, individual and group therapy, supervised visitation, and batterers intervention services.
Dallas Frequent Users System Enhancement Project places case management navigators at key locations in Dallas County to assist frequent utilizers of public services in securing housing. Navigators identify frequent users of jails, shelters, hospitals, and/or other emergency services and seek to improve their lives through affordable housing, mental health care, and/or substance abuse treatment which stabilizes them and reduces returns to jail, homelessness, reliance on emergency services, and improves overall quality of life.
Clinical Counseling and Advocacy Programs work together to help clients heal from the trauma of abuse, thus ending the generational cycle of violence. While the Clinical Program addresses clients’ mental and emotional needs, the Advocacy Program provides for clients’ temporal, corporal, and material needs, by ensuring access to safe housing, support systems, health care, legal representation, and job and financial assistance as they rebuild their lives free from abuse.
The Girls Inc. Experience provides girls ages 6-18 from low-income families with resources and support to become healthy, educated, and independent young women. Programming focuses on three core components: healthy living, academic enrichment and support, and life skills instruction focusing on serving the whole girl, in a pro-girl and girls only environment.
Healing Hands Ministries provides accessible, quality, and compassionate healthcare for the uninsured, underinsured, and those with private insurance. They are committed to welcoming the stranger with barrier-free access to healthcare, nurturing the sick, and connecting a community.
Health Services of North Texas will expand primary healthcare to new patients in need by hiring a new physician, medical assistant, and medical receptionist at our Collin County Medical Center. Through ongoing medical care, behavioral health screenings, and health education, patients will experience improved health outcomes (e.g. controlled/managed diabetes, hypertension, and depression) which will enable them to positively impact their community.
Heart House serves underprivileged refugee children with an innovative, culturally competent after-school and summer program using social-emotional learning to help build their confidence levels and improve academic performance. Established in 2000, Heart House provides life-changing services to refugee children and operates in the heart of the Vickery Meadow community of Dallas, a high-poverty area where 50 different languages are spoken.
Jewish Family Service’s fundamental “wraparound” approach to service delivery is to assess and address all issues that may be impacting an individual’s emotional well-being and their ability to achieve and maintain self-sufficiency. All services are interrelated, and key program activities are focused in the areas of mental health, employment and financial stability, and basic needs.
The Affordable and Accessible Adult Health Care program does just that for patients at Los Barrios Unidos Health Center, located in the underserved Oak Cliff neighborhood. An internal medicine doctor provides preventative, check-up, and sick/well visits to all their adult patients no matter their ability to pay. There are several improved outcomes that include increased check-up/well visits, ongoing care for patients, especially those with chronic conditions, and the number of patients in control of their diabetes.
Metrocare proposes to increase outpatient mental health treatment in Dallas County using the Assertive Community Treatment model. Through this effort, a reduction in hospitalizations, homelessness, and involvement in the criminal justice system will be achieved. This model is proven to increase access to care, improve overall health, and produce greater social outcomes. By providing these services, the overall health care costs in Dallas County will be reduced for this high-utilizer population.
The Multicultural Empowerment Program provides culturally and linguistically competent services including case management, counseling, medical advocacy, emergency shelter, and legal services. The program aims to increase the health and safety of refugees and immigrant survivors of trauma and persecution across the Dallas region by increasing their knowledge of available resources, informing them of their rights, and increasing their access to services.
My Possibilities program’s goal is to promote greater independence and enhanced quality of life for adults with disabilities and raise awareness about their capacity to work in inclusive jobs. Activities include personal training for adults to reduce health risk factors, increase strength and physical endurance, and improve balance and mobility. The program also assists clients in obtaining jobs paying at or above minimum wage and provides coaching support to clients to improve long term job retention.
The New Friends New Life four-phase, trauma-informed recovery program includes case management, counseling, and economic empowerment components to shepherd members from victim to restoration, empowerment, and self-sufficiency. The New Friends New Life Women’s Program provides a road-map for members to access wrap-around services free of cost. Members are required to meet the goals set for them in order to be promoted to the next phase.
Nexus Continuum of Care’s program goal is to meet the need of low-income women, mothers with children, and teens for accessible, high quality, effective substance abuse treatment and for the removal of barriers that are common for women seeking substance abuse treatment. These barriers include the high cost of treatment, the need for childcare, the need for treatment throughout a pregnancy including the third trimester, and the prevalence of treatment programs designed for men.
North Dallas Shared Ministries’ goal is to help low-income persons assume, through a multi-disciplinary approach, responsibility for their lives to the degree they are able by providing appropriate emergency assistance, programs to help them achieve long-term stability, and programs promoting wellness and financial independence. Key programs include: food to prevent hunger, financial help to prevent homelessness/utilities disconnect, preventive and primary medical/dental care, mental health care, English Second Language classes, employment assistance, and more.
Parkland’s Behavioral Health Expansion Program provides critical support to enhance substance abuse and counseling services for the highest risk patients. The program goals are to: help substance abuse patients continue in recovery by building a continuum of care and link to resources both in and out of the hospital and provide counseling services for victims of trauma, domestic abuse, and sexual assault in neighborhoods where those resources do not exist.
PediPlace is a nonprofit pediatric healthcare practice for children aged birth-18 years of age who are uninsured or receive Medicaid/CHIP benefits. Primary care services include: treatment of illnesses, preventive care including immunizations, hearing and vision screenings, treatment of asthma and other chronic illnesses, behavioral health screenings to check for signs of depression and/or mental illness, referrals for specialized care, and newborn parent health and child safety education.
Prism Health North Texas provides high-quality HIV medical care to individuals regardless of their income or insured status. The agency strategically locates its clinics in marginalized communities that are hardest hit by the HIV epidemic. Key program metrics include the percent of individuals achieving optimal HIV treatment, the number of individuals receiving ongoing care for this chronic condition, and the percent of individuals receiving preventative care.
Out Teach increases teacher effectiveness and student engagement by building outdoor learning labs on low-income school campuses and training teachers to use them as tools for hands-on experiential learning.
Prevention Connection provides effective social-emotional learning programs to at-risk and homeless children and youth, which are proven to reduce substance use, promote pro-social positive attitudes, and prevent self-defeating behaviors including delinquency and violence. Through evidence-based support groups, character education, mentored arts programs, and educational summer learning experiences, caring adult role models are equipping children and youth to rise above the adversity they face.
The Dental Program, established in 1989, was the first of its kind targeted to People Living with HIV/AIDS. Today, the program provides free oral health care (e.g., diagnostic, preventive, therapeutic services) to People Living with HIV/AIDS and is one of the few dental programs in the eligible metropolitan area. The nutrition program operates the only food pantry and one of only two hot meals programs that specialize in meeting the nutritional needs of People Living with HIV/AIDS.
Rockwall County Helping Hands provides emergency basic needs assistance and medical care to Rockwall County residents in crisis. Program activities such as providing comprehensive medical services through their Health Center, nutritious food through our food pantry, emergency items through our thrift store, financial assistance and information, and referral to connect individuals to other resources help their clients live healthy lives, gain stability, and build stronger futures.
The Senior Source is a program for older adults who look for protection. The type of protection appropriate for each depends upon the situation. It may be protection from persons who have financially exploited the older adult, protection from having outlived one’s financial means, or protection from potential abuse and neglect.
Society of St. Vincent de Paul alleviates the suffering of the poor with emergency assistance and systemic change programs. The pharmacy dispenses free prescriptions to the uninsured. The Mini-Loan Program retires predatory payday loans, replacing triple digit interest rate loans with 3% loans, provides financial coaching and after loan completion, bankability. Study Time provides after school educational support for K-8 children that increases reading.
Camp Sweeney provides educational and motivational activities to improve weight management skills and health through proper nutrition and exercise. The goal is to help children who are overweight, or obese, and at risk of developing diabetes, or who are already diabetic, lower their Body Mass Index (BMI) and empower them to increase control over and improve their health.
Texas Muslim Women’s Foundation Peace in the Home Domestic Violence program takes a holistic approach to meeting Domestic Violence victims’ needs and provides free, evidence based, trauma informed, culturally specialized intervention and prevention/awareness services for communities and victims of Domestic Violence. While Texas Muslim Women’s Foundation is culturally specialized, their services are available to all.
The Concilio Strong Families, Strong Communities program utilizes weekly parent group sessions to educate parents on what their roles, rights, and responsibilities are in preparing their children for academic success while keeping their families healthy by establishing better eating habits and increasing physical activity. By partnering with parents, families become healthier and have greater access to opportunity.
The Salvation Army provides homeless prevention and recovery services for at-risk and homeless individuals and families. Prevention services include case management, financial education, and financial assistance to help those at risk of homelessness achieve and maintain stable housing. Recovery services include emergency and transitional shelter which provide those who are homeless with immediate access to shelter and basic needs, and individualized services to help end their homelessness.
The Transitional Shelter and Services for Homeless Persons program focuses on helping individuals and families along their path of overcoming homelessness. As a major symptom of poverty, homelessness can be difficult to overcome without four key factors: education, employment, a belief in one's future, and connections with others different than yourself. The four pillars of their program (case management, counseling, career development, and financial education) work together holistically to provide each willing client the opportunity for success.
The Turning Point provides a full complement of services to help individuals overcome all forms of sexual violence. These services are provided free of charge to allow access to proper care for survivors from any socioeconomic status. Services include a 24-hour crisis hotline, advocacy program, Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners, mental health support groups and individual counseling. They understand that the whole family is impacted and should be part of ongoing, effective care for the survivor.
Turtle Creek Manor provides substance abuse residential and outpatient treatment for adult men and women struggling with mental illness and addiction. Key program activities include screening and assessment, relapse prevention, individual and group counseling, and education. This program improves health and the quality of life across the community by decreasing substance/alcohol abuse.
The Two-Generational Therapeutic Early Education and Family Support Services program goal is to break the cycle of homelessness and poverty for Dallas-area families with young children. Provision of high-quality, no-cost therapeutic services will ensure children are functioning at appropriates stages of development, parents are making strides toward achieving self-sufficiency, and client families are accessing consistent treatment services to improve mental health and increase stability.
Women in Need of Generous Support meets every woman where she is today, helping her discover the possibilities of what she can do and who she can become. Designed with her in mind, their programs empower her to have a healthy baby and family, build financial resiliency, advance in her career, or launch a business. Navigators coach and mentor her along her path helping her overcome obstacles along the way. In the end, she lifts up herself, her family, and the community.
The YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas addresses the education and health needs of southern Dallas residents through preschool, afterschool, a college/career readiness program, and a suite of health programs designed to build healthy habits in families, reduce childhood obesity, prevent diabetes, and lower blood pressure.
All the ways you can Live United, delivered to your inbox.