Empowering Foster Girls and Teens in Puerto Rico

Happy Holidays to all our donors!

Looking at the big picture, it has been a good year for Hogares Teresa Toda.  Thank you to all our donors for your support. 

We ended the year with a full house, meeting all accreditation standards and celebrating our participants.  This Christmas season a Community Stakeholder adopted the Hogar and provided Christmas decorations to the entire organization.  The participants had the opportunity to join them in the decoration process stimulating teamworking and voluntarism values.  They had a lot of fun. 

There were several Holiday celebrations such as Thanksgiving and Christmas day.  Thanks to the magnificent tropical weather in Puerto Rico, the girls even had the opportunity to enjoy a pool party as their end of semester celebration.  

Talking about school.  The participants had a great school semester.  All of them kept an average of 80%.  No school concerns were identified.  The tutoring and recreation programs ran accordingly as well as the Special Education accommodations.  

The Tina Hill Foundation acknowledged the work of Hogares Teresa Toda throughout the last 30 years.  The award was received by Sister Norma Matar, the Executive Administrative Officer.  

Thank you for all your support and Happy new year!

Links:

• Tina Hills Awards acknowledged 25 yrs of awards -HTT 2008 winner

Greetings to all our Donors and thank you for your support.

Hogares Teresa Toda had a very busy Summer.  The closure of several group homes in Puerto Rico, after the implementation of the Family First Act, brought a flux of new participants to the Hogar making the organization to operate at full capacity and having to develop a waiting list.  All this in the mix of a Covid surge in the Island that impacted our population.  But not even the Covid stopped the operations.  Hogares Teresa Toda made an alliance with the Department of Health and the outbreak was successfully controlled following all needed protocols. No participant required hospitalization and services were not interrupted.

With the entrance of 10 new participants, the back-to-school preparation required a closer attention from the Case Management program as several psychological and psychosocial assessments were needed to assure the best placement in an education setting.  These assessments recommend the type of educational placement that best meet the individual needs of the participants.  Some of them required Special Education arrangements, others would benefit from a private school setting and others would be better attending public school. 

So, given the increment of new participants, great part of the Summer was dedicated to work on adjustment issues, many assessments, and Covid-19 mitigations.  There was no opportunity to send the girls to summer camp or for approved home visits due to a high positivity rate of Covid-19 in Puerto Rico; reason why an in-house recreation program was created.  During the Summer the participants enjoyed summer games, movies, art and craft and several outings. 

After all assessments were completed, 13 of 24 girls were recommended to attend private schools and 11 to attend public schools.  Some girls attending public schools would benefit from vocational services and others to open cases with the Special Education Program.  

Thanks to the support from donors like you, Hogares Teresa Toda has been able to buy all needed materials for the back to school and our participants had a great start for the school year 2022-2023.