Mt. Hope Family Center Strategic Planning
Community insight and impact in action
- Client
- Mt. Hope Family Center
- Location
- Rochester, New York, United States
- Status
- Completed
Mt. Hope Family Center is a not-for-profit organization that is affiliated with the University of Rochester. It's dedicated to providing care to children and families affected by trauma, abuse, neglect and violence. Its unique approach combines scientific research, clinical services, and hands-on mentoring and training all out of one facility.
The organization engaged Blue Cottage of CannonDesign to conduct a strategic assessment of the current programmatic and infrastructure components of their program. The goal of the project was to unearth potential opportunities to better serve the families and children within their community.
Mt. Hope Family Center is dedicated to promoting psychological health and preventing maladjustment and mental illness in the lives of children and families.
Having a safe place for children and families that promotes trauma-informed care is essential to tackle the individual and systemic problems in many communities, including poverty, maltreatment, violence and depression. But these critical programs must be optimally resourced to improve lives over the long-term. Our comprehensive evaluation of programmatic and infrastructure development opportunities examined the synergies between the organization’s constituents and the impacts that could be made by way of funding.
Guided by five focus areas
The foundation of our qualitative and quantitative assessment was to gain a better understanding of the challenges, opportunities and potential synergies with key stakeholders. This was guided by five focus areas:
- Community Engagement
- Programs & Services Structure
- Infrastructure
- Funding Structure
- Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
What resulted was an inclusive, strategic assessment of the community needs, program components/requirements, and potential synergies and partnerships across the University of Rochester, with the University of Rochester Medical Center (UR Medicine) and other community collaborations that helped inform the optimal use of Mt. Hope’s sources of funding.
