At Catholic Charities Fort Worth, we have seen years of success working to help those affected by poverty. We have been able to grow our services, expand our reach, and improve the lives of our clients because we create, we eradicate, and we transform.
WE CREATE
After more than a century of service, we know social services and poverty-ending initiatives must continually evolve to meet the needs of the community. As a learning organization, we look closely at the many factors contributing to poverty and create solutions as unique and multifaceted as those we serve.
Social Impact and Sustainability
We operate three unique businesses — each designed to fill a need in our community and generate unrestricted funds for our agency.
Our Immigration Services team served 2,753 individuals.
individuals provided Immigration Services
Our Dental Clinic provided 4,968 procedures for our patients.
dental procedures performed
Our Transportation Services provided 55,000 trips to help individuals maintain employment or get to crucial medical appointments.
rides provided
New Ideas and Poverty Solutions
We test new techniques, refine our services, and look for new ways to overcome poverty. Everything we learn (success or failure) is leveraged to ensure our interventions and practices are as efficient as possible.
Our extensive Research & Evaluation Team ensures our programs are designed with a human-centered approach and that our practices are continually evaluated for impact. Learn more about our Research and Evaluation work here.
In addition to our extensive internal evaluation, we partner with third-party researchers at the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) at the University of Notre Dame to validate our findings through Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs).
- Results from LEO show definitively that our community college persistence program, Stay the Course, is making a meaningful difference. Learn more about Stay the Course here.
- Findings from LEO revealed real improvements in self-sufficiency and labor market outcomes for participants in our holistic case management program, Padua. Learn more about Padua here.
WE ERADICATE
We know ending poverty takes more than one-off services that provide families financial help and send them on their way. That is why we eradicate the barriers that perpetuate the cycle of poverty. We empower clients through holistic services that embody Christ’s call to recognize the dignity of each individual and family.
Barriers Faced by Those Experiencing Poverty
Families experiencing poverty need more than money for necessities. They face a variety of challenges – transportation issues, lack of affordable childcare, low wages, and more – that result in difficult daily decisions and prevent them from planning for the future.
That’s why we design our services based on our client’s needs and experiences, developing a true understanding of the unique situation of those we serve. Our case managers, called Navigators, follow our clients’ needs and goals. We believe the client is the expert on their own lives and our role is to be their partner – a privileged witness to their success.
Poverty For Good
We measure success by end-goal impact, but we recognize the end goal looks different for each client. That’s why at the heart of our efforts is a commitment to individualized solutions and an understanding of the complexity of poverty.
Through several years of research and evaluation, as well as more than a century of social service insights, we have developed a multidimensional framework to capture this complexity and better tailor our services to clients’ needs. These are our Out of Poverty Pathways:
Each Pathway represents a main area in which our agency has an impact on the system of poverty. Moving forward, each CCFW program will measure success based on its own individual metrics, based on outcomes identified as key to its impact and the unique Pathway it provides. Learn more about the Pathways here.
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- Financial Resiliency
- Educational Credentials
- Employment
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- Resource Stability
- Emotional Resiliency
WE TRANSFORM
We know we cannot end poverty alone. To make true impact, we must change the way poverty is addressed through collaboration, leadership, and advocacy.
The Narrative on Poverty
We are an active voice in the national conversation on poverty and engage key leaders, decision-makers, policymakers and researchers with our mission. We use the work we are doing to share our best practices and advocate for legislative change.
Because of our success and innovation, we have been called on numerous times to testify on poverty-related issues on a local, state, and national scale.
Through everything we do, we aim to change the narrative, breaking through the assumptions and stigmas assigned to people experiencing poverty and sharing the truths we have learned through observation and research. We uplift the voices of our clients to show the complexities of poverty and to empower them to tell their story.
Our Faith into Action
From natural disasters like Hurricane Harvey to the COVID-19 pandemic, we pull together our resources and step-up to support our community. Learn more about our COVID-19 response and how you can help here.
CONTACT
817.534.0814
Hours of Operation:
Monday-Friday, 8:00am-5:00pm
