Hands to Hearts International
Hands to Hearts International (HHI) is founded on two simple, intertwining principles ? nurturing children and empowering women. HHI utilizes both of these principles, giving communities the tools and resources to heal themselves. We transform the way orphanages operate. Our model creates a socially and economically sustainable model for social change. In the developing world, orphanages are typically located in economically deprived communities, and adequate, consistent care for babies is simply not available. The research is unequivocal: this lack of human touch and connection has devastating, lifelong consequences for children. Beyond the age of 3 years old, if a child has not formed a loving bond with a consistent caregiver, the critical window for developing this capacity all but closes and severe emotional problems can persist into adulthood, impacting communities with greater violence and instability. This endangers human lives and dignity, compromises communities, and keeps an unending cycle of poverty alive. HHI trains low-income women to help orphans grow into healthy children, capable of bonding and loving their future parents. These women are hired to act as nannies in partner orphanages and the infants and children receiving their specialized care enjoy improved physical, mental, and emotional health, thus increasing their likelihood of being adopted. The women are empowered with greater economic freedom to actively contribute to their families and communities. Once established, adjusted adoption fees are applied to support this much-needed nurturing, giving HHI services a sustainable platform for empowering women to provide orphans the loving care they need to successfully bond to their new family. The success of HHI will mean: 1. sustainable employment for low income women, 2. dramatically improved physical and emotional health for infants, 3. orphanages providing a higher quality of service, and 4. families adopting healthier children.
About You
Location
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Your idea
Focus of activity
Healthcare Delivery
Start Year
2004
Positioning in the mosaic of solutions
Main barrier addressed
High cost of providing quality health products and services
Main principle addressed
Design inclusive systems
Name Your Project
Hands to Hearts International
Describe Your Idea
Hands to Hearts International (HHI) is founded on two simple, intertwining principles ? nurturing children and empowering women. HHI utilizes both of these principles, giving communities the tools and resources to heal themselves. We transform the way orphanages operate. Our model creates a socially and economically sustainable model for social change. In the developing world, orphanages are typically located in economically deprived communities, and adequate, consistent care for babies is simply not available. The research is unequivocal: this lack of human touch and connection has devastating, lifelong consequences for children. Beyond the age of 3 years old, if a child has not formed a loving bond with a consistent caregiver, the critical window for developing this capacity all but closes and severe emotional problems can persist into adulthood, impacting communities with greater violence and instability. This endangers human lives and dignity, compromises communities, and keeps an unending cycle of poverty alive. HHI trains low-income women to help orphans grow into healthy children, capable of bonding and loving their future parents. These women are hired to act as nannies in partner orphanages and the infants and children receiving their specialized care enjoy improved physical, mental, and emotional health, thus increasing their likelihood of being adopted. The women are empowered with greater economic freedom to actively contribute to their families and communities. Once established, adjusted adoption fees are applied to support this much-needed nurturing, giving HHI services a sustainable platform for empowering women to provide orphans the loving care they need to successfully bond to their new family. The success of HHI will mean: 1. sustainable employment for low income women, 2. dramatically improved physical and emotional health for infants, 3. orphanages providing a higher quality of service, and 4. families adopting healthier children.
Innovation
Description of health product/service offering:
Hands to Hearts International (HHI) is founded on two simple, intertwining principles ? nurturing children and empowering women. HHI utilizes both of these principles, giving communities the tools and resources to heal themselves. We transform the way orphanages operate. Our model creates a socially and economically sustainable model for social change. In the developing world, orphanages are typically located in economically deprived communities, and adequate, consistent care for babies is simply not available. The research is unequivocal: this lack of human touch and connection has devastating, lifelong consequences for children. Beyond the age of 3 years old, if a child has not formed a loving bond with a consistent caregiver, the critical window for developing this capacity all but closes and severe emotional problems can persist into adulthood, impacting communities with greater violence and instability. This endangers human lives and dignity, compromises communities, and keeps an unending cycle of poverty alive. HHI trains low-income women to help orphans grow into healthy children, capable of bonding and loving their future parents. These women are hired to act as nannies in partner orphanages and the infants and children receiving their specialized care enjoy improved physical, mental, and emotional health, thus increasing their likelihood of being adopted. The women are empowered with greater economic freedom to actively contribute to their families and communities. Once established, adjusted adoption fees are applied to support this much-needed nurturing, giving HHI services a sustainable platform for empowering women to provide orphans the loving care they need to successfully bond to their new family. The success of HHI will mean: 1. sustainable employment for low income women, 2. dramatically improved physical and emotional health for infants, 3. orphanages providing a higher quality of service, and 4. families adopting healthier children.
Description of innovation:
? Dual focus on child health and women?s economic empowerment. ? Training childcare workers in early childhood development with a specific focus on the importance of attachment. ? Partnership with research University, commitment to quality training materials, and research to demonstrate health and development outcomes for the children. ? HHI hires newly trained childcare workers in partner orphanages and the costs of this are sustained by fees paid by adoptive parents. ? HHI trains local trainers and hires them to continue to give away HHI training in local orphanages, improving women?s skills, the care for the children and the overall child health. ? Creating system of care that can be applied in orphanages in most situations and areas. ? Commitment to community involvement and benefit, targeted at root causes of why orphanages exist ? profound poverty.
Operational model:
A team of 2-3 US and in-country instructors will travel to partner orphanages that have requested HHI training and that adopt children to US families. Once there, we work together to implement a new system of child centered care, which promotes optimal health and bonding. This is accomplished by training local disadvantaged women in Early Childhood Development, including the spheres of language, social skills, cognitive and physical development, and with special emphasis on how to best promote healthy attachments. These women are then hired within the orphanage (80% of the salary is paid by HHI) to act as nannies for 2-4 children. In addition to the training and support offered in the orphanages, HHI also offers trainings on Early Childhood Development more broadly to nearby orphanages, via a locally certified HHI trainer. These trainers are able to continue to provide important education that will impact care for 100?s more children. Trainers also work with the local government officials, educating them about the life- long problems created for children raised in orphanages and how standards of training for caregivers makes a important difference for child health. This critical aspect of HHI?s model enables the HHI education to be spread quickly and easily, at minimal cost, while promoting government policy changes (standards of education for caregivers and standards of care for children surviving in orphanages) which are easy to implement and can improve the health of children in orphanages. In short the operational model trains low income women with important new skills, thus providing employment opportunities in orphanages and fills large gaps of knowledge/education for childcare workers in orphanage settings.
Human resources:
Laura Peterson is the Founder & Executive Director. Her background includes earning a 4.0 GPA with an MA in Counseling. She has worked at all levels of service for emotionally disturbed children, including providing clinical and administrative direction. Laura has designed and directed a number of innovative programs, for previous employers and independently. Dr. Jump is a Sr. Research Associate at the Early Intervention Research Institute at Utah State Univ. She designed HHI?s training curriculum and will conduct a long- term, comprehensive study on the effects of HHI nanny care on infants? health and development in orphanages. Sujatha Balaje is a Certified HHI trainer, in Chennai, India. She holds a BA in Psych. and continues to offer regular HHI?s trainings to local orphanages. HHI?s lead Advisor is David Sawyer, a leadership educator and strategy consultant with 20 yrs of experience in the public, private, and social sectors. He helped develop the Denali Initiative, a national fellowship program for social entrepreneurs, and served as executive-in-residence for the Kauffman Foundation, promoting citizen engagement and innovation.
Key operational partnerships:
Key partnerships to building success are: adoption agencies, orphanages, research universities, foundations and corporations. Established partners are: ? Journeys of the Heart, adoption agency. Positive existing connections with orphanages and NGOs in 12 countries. They ?sell? HHI?s model to adoptive parents, thus creating sustainable funding source for each training center. ? Utah State University?s Early Intervention Research Institute. For curriculum design, training and long-term research, ensuring that our model is effective and sustainable. ? Pacific Blue Investments and Lucina Company ? corporate sponsors with special interest in promoting infant health. G-Diapers and Allora Media ? new businesses which are interested in becoming corporate sponsors. ? JRG Family Foundation ? special interest in improving orphanage systems of care. The primary challenges we?ve encountered: ? building the initial financial foundation ? political instability and corruption ? minimal power of those we serve (orphaned children, disadvantaged women). Foreseeable challenges: ? Different cultures, traditions and political issues ? New working relationships with a variety of orphanages and governments ? Maintaining the integrity of HHI programming with local management ? Creating uniform best practices across cultures and continents. Difficulties are significantly minimized by working through established relationships with partner adoption agencies.
Impact
Financial Sustainability:
- Fees charged to clients?: Yes
- How do you assure affordability?: Annually, US citizens adopt more than 20,000 children from other countries and this number grows yearly. Adoptive parents are willing to pay a modest fee, $3000 estimated, to adopt a child who has been well cared for by a nanny and who will be more likely to successfully bond to their family. The fee will not only be to adopt a child who has benefited from HHI care, it will ensure that this care is available for all of the babies and children that they cannot care for.
- Earned incomes as a percentage of operating costs: 30
- Other funding sources: HHI functions on a mixed income model. The cost of operating each site - employing nannies at a partner orphanage, as well as employing a local trainer to continue to give away the simple, yet powerful HHI training ? will be covered 100% by earned income from fees paid by adoptive parents. The costs of establishing each site will be split, with 50% being paid by the earned income of fees to adoption agencies and the other half being raised independently. As HHI grows, supporting more women to care for more children and adoption of these children increases with brand recognition, the percentage of earned income will likely grow steadily. The other costs of operating HHI, including staffing, daily operations and organization, will continue to be supported by private support.
- Strategy for long-term sustainability: Phase One funding efforts: ? Individual Donor Campaigns ? Corporate Support ? Foundation Support Phase Two: a transition phase - leverage greater support from long-term funding resources, which are: ? Adoption Agencies ? Adoptive Parents ? Continued private funds raised from individuals, foundations and corporations Phase Three: the three funding flows converge, creating a sustainable enterprise. Adoptive parents, are willing to pay a modest fee to adopt a child from an orphanage that utilizes HHI?s model of care. The number of adoptions reach a point that ensures reliable, long-term funding. This will be directed to cover the orphanage?s costs.
Current and Future Impact:
- Total number of clients: 440
- Clients in the past year: 440
- Percentage of low-income clients: 100
- Impact: While in India, a local politician in the Department of Social Welfare was very interested in HHI?s model. She visited our training site, witnessed the training and stayed to give an impassioned speech at the graduation ceremony where she distributed the certificates of completion. She was interested in seeing HHI?s training available to all adoptive parents and it was also discussed that this basic training would benefit the care of all children surviving in orphanages. A national Indian newspaper ran a story about HHI?s training becoming mandated policy for all childcare workers in orphanage settings.
- Overall "market": Around the world, millions of children, ages 0-3, are being raised in orphanages, due to AIDS, political instability, civil wars and extreme poverty. Most countries try to deal with orphans by creating orphanages, which most often have too few caregivers and too many children. HHI?s model is designed to create a simple, easy to apply system of care that is child-centered, to maximize child health and minimize the negative impacts of institutionalization. HHI?s model will be tested and fine- tuned in the first 3 years and will become a public health model of care. This could be adopted to entire countries and impact hundreds of thousands of children, all the while giving women a starting place on the economic ladder and impacting a root cause of why orphanages exist ? profound poverty.
Scaling up strategy:
Stage of the initiative:
Start Up stage.
Expansion plan:
We are at the Start Up stage. HHI successfully launched our new public health model in India in February of this year. We trained 40 women, from 6 orphanages, in the fundamentals of early childhood development, with a focus on the critical period during which children learn to attach. Their new found skills will dramatically improve the lives of over 400 babies and children! In addition, HHI directly employed 10 women at our partner orphanage to provide nanny care to the babies waiting to be adopted. A local trainer was certified and is employed by HHI, enabling the training and skills to continue to grow and fill health care gaps in the community. Phase One / Year 1 - 3: Establish 6 HHI Certified Orphanages, each with a training center in partnership with orphanages and local grassroots organizations in India, Ethiopia and Vietnam. ? 2 HHI training trips per year/per country, serving 80 women and 800+ children yearly o 3 Year TOTAL: children served = 3200, women trained = 240, orphanages certified by HHI = 6 ? Establish local training centers at partner orphanages to conduct on-going trainings o 3 Year TOTAL: serve another 2000 children, 960 women, 48 orphanages
Origin of the initiative:
For 12 years Laura Peterson, the Founder & Director, served children suffering from severe emotional disorders, children who were hurt and neglected at such a young age, that by 5 they had already failed in repeated therapeutic foster homes and adoptions. She could no longer stand to be a part of the ?ambulance squad? for these children. They always arrived too late; the damage was already too profound. It was simply not okay that children are getting hurt this badly, this early. HHI was founded to reach the neediest of the world?s children, at the earliest time, with the simplest, most cost effective and replicable forms of healing available; all the while impacting the root causes of why communities require orphanages.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
Policy change:
Governments need to adopt standards of care for children in orphanages, beyond having a doctor attend to medical conditions. Childcare workers need to be given basic education about early childhood development and be supported in helping children reach their developmental milestones. A simple, but mandatory education requirements for caregivers would empower the orphanage staff and best serve child health and development.
 | 269 weeks agoAnonymous said: I just gone through your web site, its realy wonderful, here in India we too are doing charity work among HIV/AIDS ffected people, ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 306 weeks agoAnonymous said: Laura - I am so impressed by what you've accomplished. I am an adoptive mother - my daughter was at MASOS with Susan's daughter, ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
