Upper Valley Haven

With the support of the Upper Valley community, the Haven assists those who are experiencing poverty to be free from hunger, to be securely housed, and to pursue a self-directed life.

No one in the Upper Valley should be hungry. Everyone should have a home.

Goal One: To address the community need for shelter and permanent housing, the Haven will develop a year-round low barrier shelter and a day station/resource center focused on housing navigation by 2023.

Goal Two: To allow us to meet community food needs, we will remodel our Food Shelf and kitchen spaces for efficiency and safety, replace equipment, and add a cargo van to support community food deliveries.

Goal Three: In Children's Services provide a trauma-informed environment, develop children’s skills & resiliency and improve access to resources and opportunities to integrate into the greater community.

The senior team participated in a six session training program to strengthen relationships and team culture offered by Connection 101. The program draws on a strengths-based approach to improve productivity, engagement, and a sense of meaning in work and life. It identified our default leadership styles and helped us understand how different styles impact receiving and communicating information. We worked on building psychological safety in a group setting and utilized a framework for how trust is built and broken. Recognize the impact of interpersonal communication styles on relationships Use questions to approach conversations from a place of curiosity to support more effective and empathetic communication Create a personal plan for putting new skills to work in the future

The COVID-19 pandemic required significant changes to continue services and keep clients, volunteers and staff safe and productive. We added new equipment to reduce touching of common surfaces in bathrooms and doorways. These improvements, such as power doorways at all entrances also increased accessibility. Air filtration systems and UV lights effective against viruses were added to HVACs. Protocols were created to require face coverings for all people inside and maintenance of social distance and reduced contact with people consistent with CDC guidelines. After vaccines were well established and available, we required all staff and volunteers to be vaccinated or have negative tests weekly. Our food programs changed from an indoor shopping model to a curbside delivery model. Sit down meals became "grab & go" meals. We added a daily food shelf opportunity to meet increased food insecurity in the community. Food donated and delivered to the community increased by 20% to over 500 tons annually. Food delivery in the community was increased through increased staffing to replace volunteers. To reduce chances of infection in shelters capacity was reduced by 50% to allow single room occupancy in the adult shelter and fewer families in the family shelter.