Aunt Martha's Cornerstone Document
20
-
Upload
aunt-marthas -
Category
Documents
-
view
237 -
download
1
description
Â
Transcript of Aunt Martha's Cornerstone Document
Learn MoreTo learn more about any of the services we provide at Aunt Martha’s, get in touch:
auntmarthas.org
facebook.com/auntmarthas
twitter.com/AuntMarthas
DonateAunt Martha’s is a 501-c-3 and relies on your contributions to ensure that people
continue to receive the services they need.
Work with UsBe part of a dynamic, innovative organization. Bring your skills and passion to work
at Aunt Martha’s. Aunt Martha's is an equal opportunity employer.
VolunteerAunt Martha’s was founded by volunteers and they remain a vital part of our success.
Give of yourself to help those in need.
InternBuild your experience in health care, social service and business settings. Complete your
internship, externship or practicum at Aunt Martha’s.
CONNECT WITH US
There are many ways to be part of the Aunt Martha’s family.
Dear Friends and Supporters:
Whether you've followed us since the beginning or this is your first introduction to Aunt Martha's, it's our hope that these pages will serve as a spark that ignites - or reignites - a flame of enthusiasm about the work we do and why we do it.
Born out of the turbulence of the late 1960s, and on to our current work as a progressive coordinator of health care and social services, Aunt Martha's has always been focused on responding to the needs of the people around us.
We started as a drop-in center - a very non-clinical setting - where young people could find an empathetic ear and talk about the challenges in their lives. It wasn't long before entire families, and new communities, were turning to Aunt Martha's. There were times when we were more-than-equipped to meet the needs presented to our staff. There were times when our best response was to facilitate a connection with another community agency. And there were times that required a new way of thinking about personal and family struggles that had never been holistically addressed at the community level.
These were opportunities that called for leadership and innovation, both characteristics which were imbued upon Aunt Martha's and cultivated by our founders, who envisioned an organization unlike any other. Long before there was such a thing as "care coordination," there was Aunt Martha's - more connected, more comprehensive.
I invite you to read on. I hope you will feel some sense of the passion that every one of our employees brings to work every day. I hope you will come away with an understanding of where we've been, where we are today and the unlimited possibilities of tomorrow.
I invite you to join us on our journey.
On behalf of our Board of Directors and our 1,300 employees, volunteers and interns, I welcome you to Aunt Martha's.
Sincerely,
Raul GarzaPresident and CEOAunt Martha'[email protected]
WHO WE ARE
Aunt Martha’s is a family of more than 1,300 staff and volunteers. We are
health care providers, social workers, educators, counselors, and
advocates. We are as diverse as the people and communities we serve.
We are parents who know what it is to have a sick, hurting or scared
child. We have relied on the help of others to overcome our own
challenges. We honor people’s strengths, resourcefulness and resilience.
We offer compassion. We provide supportive, professional care.
We are a team – skilled and specialized. From the psychiatrist treating
children in downstate Illinois, to the dental hygienist caring for a
homeless person in Kane County; and from the therapist helping a youth
in crisis on the streets of Chicago, to the doctor delivering a baby in
Kankakee. Our staff are the best and the brightest in the field.
We are all Care Coordinators – intensely dedicated to our patients and
clients, connecting each person with exactly what they need, from the
services our organization provides to the specialized care offered by our
collaborating partners.
We are Aunt Martha’s.
MOST KIDS ARE LUCKY.
They don't have to worry about missing the first day of school because they haven't gotten
their dental exam or their physical. They have a parent or a family member who worries about
these kinds of things for them. They have someone who makes sure they get in to see the
doctor when they're sick. They have someone who makes sure they are taken care of.
Sadly, for many children in Illinois, this is not the case.
Every year, there are hundreds of abused and neglected children who are removed from their
homes in Cook County alone. The State requires that every one of those children receives
comprehensive health care services; and that their first visit to the doctor's office takes place
within 24 hours of entering custody and before placement into substitute care.
It's Aunt Martha's job, as the lead agency of the HealthWorks of Cook County program, to
make sure these children get the care they need. Our staff is responsible for recruiting pri-
mary care physicians and specialty care providers; training the medical case management
agencies, DCFS staff, substitute caregivers and providers about the HealthWorks system;
and managing the exchange of information between agencies.
It's Aunt Martha's job to coordinate services for some of Illinois' most vulnerable children at
the exact moment when they are at their most vulnerable. We believe that every patient and
client deserves to be treated with the same level of compassion as these children.
Leading. Collaborating. Coordinating. Welcome to Aunt Martha's.
WHY WE ARE
When Aunt Martha’s original Drop-In Center opened in 1972, it was staffed
by 12 volunteers and had a budget of $2,500. After only nine months,
those volunteers had responded to nearly 1,000 requests for help,
handling problems related to family disturbances, runaways and drugs.
It was clear - even then - that Aunt Martha's was more than a youth
service center. The challenges that presented themselves often went far
beyond the struggles of adolescence, and could not be explained away
by any generation gap. Family issues were exposed. Community issues
were brought to light. These were struggles of the human condition - of
education, employment, poverty, family and social support, and
personal and community safety.
Then, as now, there were parents who struggled to afford health care for
their children, let alone themselves. Then, as now, there were children
whose only reality was one of abuse and neglect. Then, as now, there
were young people who felt unprepared to cope with the responsibilities
of adulthood. Then, as now, there were adults who realized that they
could only move forward by going back to school. Then, as now, there
was Aunt Martha's.
Ultimately, it is not the breadth of our services, the size of our budget or
the number of communities we serve that makes Aunt Martha's unique;
but our willingness and eagerness to do more - to not just listen, but
understand; to not just support, but strengthen; to not just enlighten, but
to lead; and to not just connect, but coordinate.
She is the warm,
caring relative you
feel safe talking to
about your problems.
She does not judge.
She never gives up.
She supports and
encourages. She
gently guides. She is
compassionate and
capable. She is dedi-
cated to improving
people’s lives.
Who isAunt
Martha?Who is
AuntMartha?
CARE COORDINATION IN ACTION
Our approach to collaboration, along with our unique reputation among community health centers
has given rise to new opportunities as individual hospitals and entire hospital systems have come to
recognize Aunt Martha's as an essential component of the health care ecosystem.
In pursuing these collaborations, Aunt Martha’s has established a new model of reciprocal
sustainability, blurring - if not altogether erasing - the lines that have historically distinguished
“safety net” providers from hospitals and spurring investments in solutions that make it easier and
less expensive for thousands of people to find the care they need.
Our collaboration with Presence Saint Joseph Medical Center (Joliet, IL) is this type of partnership -
a partnership that does more with less. Like many hospitals, Presence saw its emergency
department being consistently crowded by patients who, more often than not, did not require
urgent care. Did they need to see a doctor? The answer was usually yes, but these patients did not
need an emergency department. These were people who needed a medical home.
Understanding the challenge confronting the Hospital's administration, Aunt Martha's proposed a
solution far less costly than the unsustainable investment in unnecessary emergency department care.
Following our lead, the Hospital invested in a model that had achieved instant and sustained success
since being implemented at Advocate South Suburban Hospital (Hazel Crest, IL) in 2007. The Hospital
invested in Aunt Martha’s in a medical home that is located just down the hall from the emergency
department. Our patients know their medical home as Aunt Martha's West Joliet Health Center.
KEY COLLABORATIONS
Hospitals
Advocate South Suburban Hospital
Anne & Robert H. Lurie
Children’s Hospital of Chicago
Franciscan St. James Health
La Rabida Children’s Hospital
Presence Saint Joseph Medical Center
Roseland Community Hospital
Silver Cross Hospital
St. Alexius Medical Center
Accountable Care Entities
ACE Care Services
Advocate Physician Partners ACE
Better Health Network
Illinois Partnership for Health
Population Health of Illinois
Coordinated Care Entities
Lurie Children’s Health Partners
Care Coordination Entity
Together4Health
Service Delivery & CommunityInvestment Partnerships
The Chicago Community Trust
CountyCare
GE Foundation
Hesed House
Little City Foundation
United Way
COLLABORATION
In recent years, organizations large and small, for-profit and non-profit,
have been forced to re-examine their role in the lives of the people they
serve, their role in their community and their role in their relationships
with stakeholders and other organizations. Some have chosen the
collaborative path as a means of responding to emerging needs, some
as a means of responding to new opportunities, and some as a means
of creating opportunities.
By its very nature, care coordination requires the interweaving of
cross-disciplinary and environmental structures and processes in order
to produce the desired outcomes. In other words, the absence of
effective collaboration makes care coordination impossible.
At Aunt Martha's, our approach to collaboration is based on two fundamental principles:
1. We believe that the most effective care coordination
systems are organized with clients, patients and families
at their center.
2. We believe that health and human service providers
have a responsibility to work individually and cooperatively
to not only maintain but to improve the health
and well-being of their community.
QUALITY
Perhaps more than other, less diverse organizations, Aunt Martha's understands the
importance of Quality. Not because we operate 100 distinct programs. Not because we
monitor over 2,000 unique measures of the quality of the services we provide. We
understand the importance of Quality because we understand the fragility of life.
Objective, subjective, funder-driven or self-imposed, the client and patient experience is the
focus of our quality improvement efforts. This focus simplifies the many priorities facing
staff at every level of our organization. At the most fundamental level, it means
understanding patient and client needs from the patient or client perspective. It means that
an employee who does the right thing for their client makes a positive contribution to the
quality of that individual’s experience with Aunt Martha's.
Aunt Martha's has been continuously accredited by the Joint Commission for Ambulatory and Behavioral Health since 1997. In March 2013, we became the first community health center in Illinois to receive the Joint Commission's certification as a Primary Care Medical Home (PCMH).
The Joint Commission’s PCMH certification means that Aunt Martha's excels in the following areas:
Coordinated Care
Patient-Centered Care
Comprehensive Care
Superb Access to Care
Systems-based Approach to Quality & Safety
Health Care
• Third largest community health center in Illinois. More than 1.5 million visits since 2001
• Largest provider of dental and behavioral services among community health centers in Illinois
• Aunt Martha's serves three and a half times as many uninsured patients as the average community health center in Illinois
Child Welfare Services
• 2,000 abused and neglected children receive shelter, health care and care coordination services
• Illinois’ largest provider of services to families in crisis
• 100% of our group home residents receive health care services from an Aunt Martha’s health center
Community-based Services
• Aunt Martha’s outreach services connect 3,000 homeless children, youth and adults to shelter, health care, employment training and independent living programs.
• 1,200 preschool, elementary, and high school children received education and community based services
• More than 3,000 people have completed our employment programs and have gotten jobs in their home community
OUR IMPACT
Aunt Martha’s Contributes10% of the Total Economic
Impact of IllinoisCommunity Health Centers
Patients & Clients Served Annually
Youth in Crisis Who Remainedwith Their Families & Stayed out ofthe Child Welfare & Juvenile System
Babies in Illinois isDelivered by an
Aunt Martha’s Physician
INNOVATION
Innovation means more than thinking differently. It means taking the time to understand the
needs of the people you serve, then offering solutions that not only respond to those needs,
but that open the doors to new options and new possibilities.
Sometimes the solution is simple. But when it is not, it is our job to take that which is
complicated and make it simple. That's the essence of care coordination. That's innovation.
That's Aunt Martha's.
A WORLD AWAY, BUT NOT A WORLD APART
Some 370 miles south of Chicago, at Illinois' southernmost point, two great rivers flow
together. The town that sprung up at this important confluence is named Cairo. It is home
to a population of 2,600.
In the context of most stories related to Chicago and its suburbs, Cairo would appear to be
a world away. But for the Cairo residents who are served by Aunt Martha's telepsychiatry
program, neither geography nor economic depression have rendered it a world apart.
OUR REACH
Aurora
Bellwood
Cairo
Carpentersville
Centralia
Chicago
Chicago Heights
Danville
Dolton
Elgin
Glenwood
Harvey
Hazel Crest
Joliet
Kankakee
Mt. Carmel
Mattoon
Midlothian
Monee
Olympia Fields
Palatine
Paris
Park Forest
Riverdale
South Holland
Toulon
Watseka
Services Radiating fromSites in 14 Counties
Illinois Counties where Aunt Martha’sClients and Patients Reside
Aunt Martha’sLocations
MAKING CONNECTIONS WITH THE CARE COORDINATION SYSTEM
Every Aunt Martha's employee, regardless of their title or tenure, is a Care Coordinator. This is not a
matter of perception. Nor is it a matter of location, education or experience. It is a matter of fact.
With more than 1,300 Care Coordinators spread across some 50 sites, and no truly comparable
model to draw on, we have innovated our way beyond previously acceptable concepts like "warm
hand-offs" and referral processes that rely on phone calls, fax machines and spreadsheets.
Thanks to our visionary team of software developers, our Care Coordinators have access to a
custom built, cutting-edge application that combines the concepts of electronic records and health
information exchange. The system they've developed draws patient and client information from half
a dozen otherwise unconnected applications, placing nearly 2,900 unique data elements and more
than half a million service records at the fingertips of each of Aunt Martha's Care Coordinators.
Of course, the system does more than provide an instant snapshot of a patient or client's entire
service experience, from their days in our Early Learning Center to their visit last week at our Teen
Clinic. It matches each client's profile against the eligibility guidelines for every one of Aunt Martha's
programs and services, automatically generating a list of services the client might like to know more
about, and plotting the sites where those services are offered on a map that also includes the
location of the client's home.
An Aunt Martha's Care Coordinator can easily access this information, identify the programs and
services that best fit the client's needs and then - from within the Care Coordination System - create
and follow-up on an unlimited number of referrals.
At Aunt Martha's, care coordination means giving people the tools they need to do more, more easily.
COMPONENTS OF CARE COORDINATION
At Aunt Martha’s, care coordination doesn’t enhance our work, it drives our work.
Care coordination is opening doors for the people we serve. It is a team-based approach to improve
the health and well-being of our clients and patients by bridging gaps, overcoming barriers and
facilitating the delivery of the right services at the right place at the right time.
Care coordination inherently focuses on providing our patients a seamless, high quality experience.
It pushes our staff to seek out innovative solutions. And it places great value on our ability to
collaborate – to work together with one another and with the broader provider community to
respond to the needs of the people we serve.
Aunt Martha’s has the advantages of having been a first mover in care coordination, enabling us to
capitalize on trends that have now become the underpinning of health care reform. With this as a
core strength, we are positioned to succeed in the coordinated health care market that has
emerged, and we are positioned to be an even more highly valued organization as the concept of
tightly coordinated care moves from best practice to federal mandate.
MAKING CONNECTIONS WITH THE CARE COORDINATION SYSTEM
Every Aunt Martha's employee, regardless of their title or tenure, is a Care Coordinator. This is not a
matter of perception. Nor is it a matter of location, education or experience. It is a matter of fact.
With more than 1,300 Care Coordinators spread across some 50 sites, and no truly comparable
model to draw on, we have innovated our way beyond previously acceptable concepts like "warm
hand-offs" and referral processes that rely on phone calls, fax machines and spreadsheets.
Thanks to our visionary team of software developers, our Care Coordinators have access to a
custom built, cutting-edge application that combines the concepts of electronic records and health
information exchange. The system they've developed draws patient and client information from half
a dozen otherwise unconnected applications, placing nearly 2,900 unique data elements and more
than half a million service records at the fingertips of each of Aunt Martha's Care Coordinators.
Of course, the system does more than provide an instant snapshot of a patient or client's entire
service experience, from their days in our Early Learning Center to their visit last week at our Teen
Clinic. It matches each client's profile against the eligibility guidelines for every one of Aunt Martha's
programs and services, automatically generating a list of services the client might like to know more
about, and plotting the sites where those services are offered on a map that also includes the
location of the client's home.
An Aunt Martha's Care Coordinator can easily access this information, identify the programs and
services that best fit the client's needs and then - from within the Care Coordination System - create
and follow-up on an unlimited number of referrals.
At Aunt Martha's, care coordination means giving people the tools they need to do more, more easily.
COMPONENTS OF CARE COORDINATION
At Aunt Martha’s, care coordination doesn’t enhance our work, it drives our work.
Care coordination is opening doors for the people we serve. It is a team-based approach to improve
the health and well-being of our clients and patients by bridging gaps, overcoming barriers and
facilitating the delivery of the right services at the right place at the right time.
Care coordination inherently focuses on providing our patients a seamless, high quality experience.
It pushes our staff to seek out innovative solutions. And it places great value on our ability to
collaborate – to work together with one another and with the broader provider community to
respond to the needs of the people we serve.
Aunt Martha’s has the advantages of having been a first mover in care coordination, enabling us to
capitalize on trends that have now become the underpinning of health care reform. With this as a
core strength, we are positioned to succeed in the coordinated health care market that has
emerged, and we are positioned to be an even more highly valued organization as the concept of
tightly coordinated care moves from best practice to federal mandate.
INNOVATION
Innovation means more than thinking differently. It means taking the time to understand the
needs of the people you serve, then offering solutions that not only respond to those needs,
but that open the doors to new options and new possibilities.
Sometimes the solution is simple. But when it is not, it is our job to take that which is
complicated and make it simple. That's the essence of care coordination. That's innovation.
That's Aunt Martha's.
A WORLD AWAY, BUT NOT A WORLD APART
Some 370 miles south of Chicago, at Illinois' southernmost point, two great rivers flow
together. The town that sprung up at this important confluence is named Cairo. It is home
to a population of 2,600.
In the context of most stories related to Chicago and its suburbs, Cairo would appear to be
a world away. But for the Cairo residents who are served by Aunt Martha's telepsychiatry
program, neither geography nor economic depression have rendered it a world apart.
OUR REACH
Aurora
Bellwood
Cairo
Carpentersville
Centralia
Chicago
Chicago Heights
Danville
Dolton
Elgin
Glenwood
Harvey
Hazel Crest
Joliet
Kankakee
Mt. Carmel
Mattoon
Midlothian
Monee
Olympia Fields
Palatine
Paris
Park Forest
Riverdale
South Holland
Toulon
Watseka
Services Radiating fromSites in 14 Counties
Illinois Counties where Aunt Martha’sClients and Patients Reside
Aunt Martha’sLocations
QUALITY
Perhaps more than other, less diverse organizations, Aunt Martha's understands the
importance of Quality. Not because we operate 100 distinct programs. Not because we
monitor over 2,000 unique measures of the quality of the services we provide. We
understand the importance of Quality because we understand the fragility of life.
Objective, subjective, funder-driven or self-imposed, the client and patient experience is the
focus of our quality improvement efforts. This focus simplifies the many priorities facing
staff at every level of our organization. At the most fundamental level, it means
understanding patient and client needs from the patient or client perspective. It means that
an employee who does the right thing for their client makes a positive contribution to the
quality of that individual’s experience with Aunt Martha's.
Aunt Martha's has been continuously accredited by the Joint Commission for Ambulatory and Behavioral Health since 1997. In March 2013, we became the first community health center in Illinois to receive the Joint Commission's certification as a Primary Care Medical Home (PCMH).
The Joint Commission’s PCMH certification means that Aunt Martha's excels in the following areas:
Coordinated Care
Patient-Centered Care
Comprehensive Care
Superb Access to Care
Systems-based Approach to Quality & Safety
Health Care
• Third largest community health center in Illinois. More than 1.5 million visits since 2001
• Largest provider of dental and behavioral services among community health centers in Illinois
• Aunt Martha's serves three and a half times as many uninsured patients as the average community health center in Illinois
Child Welfare Services
• 2,000 abused and neglected children receive shelter, health care and care coordination services
• Illinois’ largest provider of services to families in crisis
• 100% of our group home residents receive health care services from an Aunt Martha’s health center
Community-based Services
• Aunt Martha’s outreach services connect 3,000 homeless children, youth and adults to shelter, health care, employment training and independent living programs.
• 1,200 preschool, elementary, and high school children received education and community based services
• More than 3,000 people have completed our employment programs and have gotten jobs in their home community
OUR IMPACT
Aunt Martha’s Contributes10% of the Total Economic
Impact of IllinoisCommunity Health Centers
Patients & Clients Served Annually
Youth in Crisis Who Remainedwith Their Families & Stayed out ofthe Child Welfare & Juvenile System
Babies in Illinois isDelivered by an
Aunt Martha’s Physician
COLLABORATION
In recent years, organizations large and small, for-profit and non-profit,
have been forced to re-examine their role in the lives of the people they
serve, their role in their community and their role in their relationships
with stakeholders and other organizations. Some have chosen the
collaborative path as a means of responding to emerging needs, some
as a means of responding to new opportunities, and some as a means
of creating opportunities.
By its very nature, care coordination requires the interweaving of
cross-disciplinary and environmental structures and processes in order
to produce the desired outcomes. In other words, the absence of
effective collaboration makes care coordination impossible.
At Aunt Martha's, our approach to collaboration is based on two fundamental principles:
1. We believe that the most effective care coordination
systems are organized with clients, patients and families
at their center.
2. We believe that health and human service providers
have a responsibility to work individually and cooperatively
to not only maintain but to improve the health
and well-being of their community.
KEY COLLABORATIONS
Hospitals
Advocate South Suburban Hospital
Anne & Robert H. Lurie
Children’s Hospital of Chicago
Franciscan St. James Health
La Rabida Children’s Hospital
Presence Saint Joseph Medical Center
Roseland Community Hospital
Silver Cross Hospital
St. Alexius Medical Center
Accountable Care Entities
ACE Care Services
Advocate Physician Partners ACE
Better Health Network
Illinois Partnership for Health
Population Health of Illinois
Coordinated Care Entities
Lurie Children’s Health Partners
Care Coordination Entity
Together4Health
Service Delivery & CommunityInvestment Partnerships
The Chicago Community Trust
CountyCare
GE Foundation
Hesed House
Little City Foundation
United Way
WHY WE ARE
When Aunt Martha’s original Drop-In Center opened in 1972, it was staffed
by 12 volunteers and had a budget of $2,500. After only nine months,
those volunteers had responded to nearly 1,000 requests for help,
handling problems related to family disturbances, runaways and drugs.
It was clear - even then - that Aunt Martha's was more than a youth
service center. The challenges that presented themselves often went far
beyond the struggles of adolescence, and could not be explained away
by any generation gap. Family issues were exposed. Community issues
were brought to light. These were struggles of the human condition - of
education, employment, poverty, family and social support, and
personal and community safety.
Then, as now, there were parents who struggled to afford health care for
their children, let alone themselves. Then, as now, there were children
whose only reality was one of abuse and neglect. Then, as now, there
were young people who felt unprepared to cope with the responsibilities
of adulthood. Then, as now, there were adults who realized that they
could only move forward by going back to school. Then, as now, there
was Aunt Martha's.
Ultimately, it is not the breadth of our services, the size of our budget or
the number of communities we serve that makes Aunt Martha's unique;
but our willingness and eagerness to do more - to not just listen, but
understand; to not just support, but strengthen; to not just enlighten, but
to lead; and to not just connect, but coordinate.
She is the warm,
caring relative you
feel safe talking to
about your problems.
She does not judge.
She never gives up.
She supports and
encourages. She
gently guides. She is
compassionate and
capable. She is dedi-
cated to improving
people’s lives.
Who isAunt
Martha?Who is
AuntMartha?
CARE COORDINATION IN ACTION
Our approach to collaboration, along with our unique reputation among community health centers
has given rise to new opportunities as individual hospitals and entire hospital systems have come to
recognize Aunt Martha's as an essential component of the health care ecosystem.
In pursuing these collaborations, Aunt Martha’s has established a new model of reciprocal
sustainability, blurring - if not altogether erasing - the lines that have historically distinguished
“safety net” providers from hospitals and spurring investments in solutions that make it easier and
less expensive for thousands of people to find the care they need.
Our collaboration with Presence Saint Joseph Medical Center (Joliet, IL) is this type of partnership -
a partnership that does more with less. Like many hospitals, Presence saw its emergency
department being consistently crowded by patients who, more often than not, did not require
urgent care. Did they need to see a doctor? The answer was usually yes, but these patients did not
need an emergency department. These were people who needed a medical home.
Understanding the challenge confronting the Hospital's administration, Aunt Martha's proposed a
solution far less costly than the unsustainable investment in unnecessary emergency department care.
Following our lead, the Hospital invested in a model that had achieved instant and sustained success
since being implemented at Advocate South Suburban Hospital (Hazel Crest, IL) in 2007. The Hospital
invested in Aunt Martha’s in a medical home that is located just down the hall from the emergency
department. Our patients know their medical home as Aunt Martha's West Joliet Health Center.
WHO WE ARE
Aunt Martha’s is a family of more than 1,300 staff and volunteers. We are
health care providers, social workers, educators, counselors, and
advocates. We are as diverse as the people and communities we serve.
We are parents who know what it is to have a sick, hurting or scared
child. We have relied on the help of others to overcome our own
challenges. We honor people’s strengths, resourcefulness and resilience.
We offer compassion. We provide supportive, professional care.
We are a team – skilled and specialized. From the psychiatrist treating
children in downstate Illinois, to the dental hygienist caring for a
homeless person in Kane County; and from the therapist helping a youth
in crisis on the streets of Chicago, to the doctor delivering a baby in
Kankakee. Our staff are the best and the brightest in the field.
We are all Care Coordinators – intensely dedicated to our patients and
clients, connecting each person with exactly what they need, from the
services our organization provides to the specialized care offered by our
collaborating partners.
We are Aunt Martha’s.
MOST KIDS ARE LUCKY.
They don't have to worry about missing the first day of school because they haven't gotten
their dental exam or their physical. They have a parent or a family member who worries about
these kinds of things for them. They have someone who makes sure they get in to see the
doctor when they're sick. They have someone who makes sure they are taken care of.
Sadly, for many children in Illinois, this is not the case.
Every year, there are hundreds of abused and neglected children who are removed from their
homes in Cook County alone. The State requires that every one of those children receives
comprehensive health care services; and that their first visit to the doctor's office takes place
within 24 hours of entering custody and before placement into substitute care.
It's Aunt Martha's job, as the lead agency of the HealthWorks of Cook County program, to
make sure these children get the care they need. Our staff is responsible for recruiting pri-
mary care physicians and specialty care providers; training the medical case management
agencies, DCFS staff, substitute caregivers and providers about the HealthWorks system;
and managing the exchange of information between agencies.
It's Aunt Martha's job to coordinate services for some of Illinois' most vulnerable children at
the exact moment when they are at their most vulnerable. We believe that every patient and
client deserves to be treated with the same level of compassion as these children.
Leading. Collaborating. Coordinating. Welcome to Aunt Martha's.
Learn MoreTo learn more about any of the services we provide at Aunt Martha’s, get in touch:
auntmarthas.org
facebook.com/auntmarthas
twitter.com/AuntMarthas
DonateAunt Martha’s is a 501-c-3 and relies on your contributions to ensure that people
continue to receive the services they need.
Work with UsBe part of a dynamic, innovative organization. Bring your skills and passion to work
at Aunt Martha’s. Aunt Martha's is an equal opportunity employer.
VolunteerAunt Martha’s was founded by volunteers and they remain a vital part of our success.
Give of yourself to help those in need.
InternBuild your experience in health care, social service and business settings. Complete your
internship, externship or practicum at Aunt Martha’s.
CONNECT WITH US
There are many ways to be part of the Aunt Martha’s family.
Dear Friends and Supporters:
Whether you've followed us since the beginning or this is your first introduction to Aunt Martha's, it's our hope that these pages will serve as a spark that ignites - or reignites - a flame of enthusiasm about the work we do and why we do it.
Born out of the turbulence of the late 1960s, and on to our current work as a progressive coordinator of health care and social services, Aunt Martha's has always been focused on responding to the needs of the people around us.
We started as a drop-in center - a very non-clinical setting - where young people could find an empathetic ear and talk about the challenges in their lives. It wasn't long before entire families, and new communities, were turning to Aunt Martha's. There were times when we were more-than-equipped to meet the needs presented to our staff. There were times when our best response was to facilitate a connection with another community agency. And there were times that required a new way of thinking about personal and family struggles that had never been holistically addressed at the community level.
These were opportunities that called for leadership and innovation, both characteristics which were imbued upon Aunt Martha's and cultivated by our founders, who envisioned an organization unlike any other. Long before there was such a thing as "care coordination," there was Aunt Martha's - more connected, more comprehensive.
I invite you to read on. I hope you will feel some sense of the passion that every one of our employees brings to work every day. I hope you will come away with an understanding of where we've been, where we are today and the unlimited possibilities of tomorrow.
I invite you to join us on our journey.
On behalf of our Board of Directors and our 1,300 employees, volunteers and interns, I welcome you to Aunt Martha's.
Sincerely,
Raul GarzaPresident and CEOAunt Martha'[email protected]
