LAS VEGAS (March 22, 2022) With a mission rooted in investing in children and their families over a long-term period and with a holistic approach, non-profit CORE is dedicated to building an infrastructure for success to ensure that historically underserved students can pursue choice-filled lives. Through new funding from United Way of Southern Nevada’s Community Impact Grant and the Nevada Department of Education 21st Century Grant, CORE has recently welcomed two new Social Emotional Champions as they expand the social work services available to families. This new offering ensures that every CORE Scholar, parent, and guardian has access to an experienced professional in the social work field that is dedicated to supporting them with the resources and services they need to thrive.
Since joining the organization during this time of heightened unpredictability and instability as the pandemic continues, these Social Emotional Champions have been at the forefront of working with CORE families to facilitate Emergency Relief Grants - a program through which CORE offers micro-grants to families to help meet basic needs as unexpected emergencies arise. These micro-grants provide targeted investments in families to help them stay on track for their financial goals in spite of emergency expenses that would otherwise prove a significant barrier to economic advancement.
“We are so fortunate to have these Social Emotional Champions on the team. They have worked tirelessly to ensure our CORE Scholars and their families are supported. This was especially important this winter as several families lost up to two weeks of work due to time missed from Covid-19 illness,” said Lindsay Harper, Founder and Executive Director of CORE. “However, our Social Emotional Champions do much more than just provide families with money, they sit with each family to help connect them with existing resources in our network of community partners and they plan with the family for how to create savings or budget for future emergencies. This is an important piece of creating an infrastructure for success that allows families to not just get through a current crisis but receive targeted resources and counseling that can grow their economic mobility.”
From two-generational programming to social-emotional learning, CORE recognizes that an effective education system should focus on a whole child, not just their academic achievement, and CORE’s Social Emotional Champions play a pivotal role in doing just that. This role is designed to help CORE provide the comprehensive wrap-around support, social work case-management, and social-emotional development that allows whole students to walk into their classroom every day, ready to achieve their best. CORE’s philosophy is that social and emotional support is just as important to student success as other academic supports.
As a two-generational program focused on supporting whole families, CORE brought on two Social Emotional Champions so that one can be dedicated to supporting high school aged Scholars as they work through CORE Academy programming, and the other can partner with parents and guardians through CORE’s new Parent Academy program. Parent Academy gives the parents of Scholars direct access to a dedicated social work case manager, learning opportunities to grow both career and life skills, and leadership opportunities that center their voices in the planning process of the CORE Community. This two-gen approach ensures that the needs of the entire household are being met and gives both Scholars and their parents a dedicated champion to turn to in times of need, a connection that can be especially vital as young people and their families navigate the transition to adulthood through the teenage years.
Both of CORE’s new Social Emotional Champions have deep roots in the Las Vegas community, and join CORE after completing master’s degree programs in Social Work from the University of Nevada Reno and University of Nevada Las Vegas. These new team members are playing an important part in the work to build a community that can support Southern Nevada’s under-resourced students as they acquire the knowledge, attitudes, and skills they need be successful and thrive upon high school graduation and beyond.
