Providence House

Mission Statement: Providence House keeps kids safe and families together, embracing them with support to enhance stability that strengthens communities. Vision Statement: Children everywhere are raised in safe, loving families free from abuse and neglect. History and Progress: Providence House, Inc. was founded in 1981 to provide emergency shelter for children in Greater Cleveland whose families were experiencing a crisis. Providence House is Ohio’s first and one of the nation's longest-operating crisis nurseries among the 70+ in operation in the U.S. and Canada. We offer free, voluntary, non-custodial emergency shelter to children newborn through twelve years old, actively living in crisis situations that place them at risk of abuse or neglect. In our 42-year history, we have supported over 14,000 children and families in crisis throughout Northeast Ohio.

Our ultimate vision is that children everywhere are raised in safe, loving families free from abuse

Goal One: Expand our services to Cleveland's East Side, bringing our services where the majority of our unserved and waitlisted children and families live. This campus will nearly double our service capacity.

Goal Two: Invest in strategic organization initiatives including a complete DEI audit of our practices, procedures, and protocols as well as continue our work to advance pay equity for our employees.

Goal Three: Launch and expand the Center for Crisis Nurseries, a collaborative and policy-minded group of like-organizations across the United States and Canada.

We have provided opportunities for members of our team to seek professional training and skill-building activities outside of our organization. We also make an effort to bring in resources and training for all members of our organization throughout the year that will enhance their professional development. From a leadership perspective, each member of our management team and leadership has the opportunity for mentorship with a member of our Board. This creates access to executive leaders for our employees as well as new channels for bi-directional flow of ideas and information that improve our organization's planning, strategy, and communication.

Our staff and Board engage in a number of activities that allow Providence House to create meaningful partnerships with local agencies, organizations, donors, public officials, policy decision-makers, and the general community. At all levels, we focus on building relationships that allow us to promote and share the work that Providence House does as well as help to guide policy that impacts the children and families in our community and their ability to thrive.

Providence House is an outcomes-focused, learning organization with a “data culture” that regularly assesses the effectiveness of our services through weekly staff/team meetings, board/committee meetings, family team meetings, and ongoing communication and collaboration with our referral agencies. We utilize a number of sophisticated, customized data tracking systems to capture service data and performance to stated outcomes goals, not only to report progress, but also monitor our quality of engagement and inform program design decisions. In the last year, we have continued to rely on the feedback from our community partners and clients to better understand their needs and the challenges they face, and any program updates that need to be made to accommodate those needs. As part of our "Destination 50" Strategic Plan, we have also continued to pursue ways that the culture of our organization continues to celebrate and champion diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEI&B). We see these values at the core of our mission in both serving our community and acting as the best employer we can be to our staff. We have begun a full DEI&B audit, created a DEI&B Board Committee, and we are currently forming a staff DEI&B Committee comprised of members from all levels of our organization. We understand that in order to best grow with our community, we must honor and respect our differences, and ensure that there is a space for every voice at the table.