Higher
Ground Neighborhood Development Corp
6441 Herzog Street
Oakland, California 94608
Telephone: 510-658-6454 Fax:
Website:
Email: lotusA&T@aol.com
Contacts
CEO:
Other contacts: Amber Blackwell MA, Operations
Director
Tiffany Gipson, Operations Director
Year Incorporated: 2002
Category:
Lead Agency (coordinator and manager of comprehensive multi-organization afterschool program)
Service Provider
Mission Statement:
Higher Ground Neighborhood Development Corporation is a multi service not for profit organized to provide supplemental services to children, parents, schools and school districts. This organization's purpose is to help improve the means that education is delivered to at-risk youth in Oakland Public Schools. The organizations mission is to provide services that address intellectual development through providing behavioral health treatment, after school enrichment, and service coordination for youth and organizations operating in a school setting. And our motto is 'Progress NOT Perfection.'
History/Goals/Objectives:
Higher Ground is in it's fourth year of operating in the Oakland public schools. We have provided services at Education for Change, formerly E. Morris Cox, Fruitvale Elementary, Allendale Elementary, and Sobrante Park Elementary. Higher Ground offers four main categories of services. They are Behavioral Support, Professional Development and Teacher Coaching, Service Coordination and After-School Program Development, Coordination and Implementation. Higher Ground's Behavioral Support Services specialize in providing milieu rehabilitation services through providing behavioral counseling within the classroom and school based setting. Our objective is to increase the time a child spends in the classroom on task. Teaching children how to get their needs met in the academic setting through regulation of emotions is our goal. Our unique way of delivering counseling services increases children's abilities to function successfully within the educational environment. This mode of counseling helps children overcome feelings of school failure, new comer anxiety and transitioning, social skills in the academic setting, and overall low self-esteem issues. We have helped children learn to effectively cope with their daily dilemmas. Working with children and teachers to recreate an environment that is therapeutically correct will increase levels of school success. This project works with parents, training them on ways to work with their child to overcome the above themes and or inappropriate behavioral habits standing in the way of ultimate school success. Higher Ground's Intervention Counseling Mentors are experienced in providing counseling services to children in a school and classroom setting Often times traditional teacher credentialing programs fail to prepare teachers to work with New Millennium children. Today's children are experiencing trauma like no other time in recent history. Urban underprivileged youth are living in stressful surroundings. Many have more stress than they have resources to cope effectively. Most times this stress is manifested at school where stress levels are high. Multifaceted approaches that are environmentally and culturally rooted and have proven to be effective in reaching children of Color in a school setting are used to modify and manage behavior. Helping teachers understand, recognize, and respond to behaviors is our primary goal for professional development. This program works with teachers around classroom and individualized behavior management interventions, provide practical tools to transform behaviors, and equip them with strategies to recognizing and teach children in distress. Helping Teachers Teach is our motto. Higher Ground Neighborhood Development Corp. provides coordination of all supplemental services to school sites and districts. We specialize in collaborative management and project implementation. The current Higher Ground team has a collective twenty years experience coordinating and managing the collaborative process. We work to assure that multiple services at a sight or within a district are managed and implemented in a cohesive manner, are fiscally sound and support the overall school plan. Higher Ground specializes in the delivery of 21st Century and independent school supported after-school programming. We plan, coordinate, and implement collaborative youth development services that align with 21st Century regulations and general youth development principals. We focus on building resiliency in children. HG is a key steak holder that provides lead agency assistance or a vital partnership coordinating and hiring staff to implement a school's vision. Staff is knowledgeable about 21st Century legislation, data base management, youth development principles, programmatic regulations and fiscal solvency.
Target Populations:
Elementary
Middle
High
Male
Female
Staff Capacity:
HIgher Ground's competent team is comprised of over 20 consultants, 3 youth workers and 8 volunteers. At the conception of the organization, it was determined that empowering the individual so they may strengthen the community was our credo. One key strategy, was to allow each of our partners to become consultants versus employees. This would allow each of them to start their own small business and we would provide them with the technical support to help make it sustainable.
Language Capacity (other than English): Spanish
Organizational Operating Budget: $200,001 - $500,000
Geographic Areas Served (current):
District 4 (East Oakland - Dimond, Laurel, Montclair, Joaquin Miller)
District 5 (East Oakland - Fruitvale)
District 7 (East Oakland - Coliseum)
Geographic Areas for Expanded Service:
Citywide