Marillac Social Center - Success Stories

Family Enrichment Night

Have you ever heard of a Parent Meeting that was standing room only and unfortunate late-comers had to be regretfully turned away? Well, it just happened at Marillac House! Two organizations from the East Garfield Safety Net, Taproots, Inc. and Marillac House teamed up for a Family Enrichment night that was a rousing success. There were over 100 families who shared food, fun and friendship and created great memories to sustain them in “the lean times”. After the delicious meal, the parents gathered for a presentation on Domestic Violence while the different age kids gathered for games, stories, art, and poetry. The parents were delighted with the different books and prizes their children received as well as the raffle prizes for the adults, but probably one of the most memorable moments was when one of the parents stood to thank the speaker for presenting the signs to look for in violent relationships. She said, “If only I had known that two years ago my daughter would be alive today”! A dramatic affirmation of the need and value of these community programs.

Communities Working Together

Don’t children have a way of bringing people together? In a delightful demonstration of this, we are finding two old and venerable West side institutions coming together in a new and vibrant collaborative effort. Marillac Social Agency in East Garfield is partnering with Rush Medical Center to the great benefit of “at risk” children, as well as all those people involved in the partnership. Since September, 2006, specialists from Rush have been sharing their expertise with personnel from Marillac House in a variety of constructive and creative ways.

One of the most impressive efforts of this multi-pronged partnership is called S.A.M.E, a science and math effort to help pre-schoolers learn and love two subjects that are frequently filled with fear. Enter Ms. Tissa Williams’ classroom and prepare to meet five year olds who have been exposed to concepts that used to be introduced in Sophomore Biology class! These kids are way beyond the old “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” song, and appear fascinated and familiar with lungs, bladder, veins and heart! Ask them about colors and they will show you a color coded, numeric graph depicting how many children are wearing red that day, how many blue, etc., and which is greater or lesser. Notice the doll house and see the kids measuring the furniture to see if it will fit in the allotted space; now go to the kitchen area and find them following a recipe for cookies that asks for a quarter of a cup of this and sixty ounces of that. If you go out into the play yard with them, they won’t point out “the big tree” or “the yellow flower” but they will tell you about the “sugar maple” and the “daffodil”, and even more information in addition to the correct identification because they did research on the computers Rush provided for their classroom and they have examined the leaves and blossoms under the microscope.

In addition to the specialized expertise of Rush personnel, the Medical Center also provides invaluable equipment and supplies, educational field trips, awards ceremonies for outstanding students and their families, regularly scheduled educational days for the teachers so they stay current and competent in this field, coaching/mentoring, technical training and access to state-of-the-art equipment. When the teachers get together and compare notes and network with one another, it is another opportunity to continually benefit our future scientists and mathematicians. At a time when the United States is falling more and more behind in these significant and specialized fields, programs and partnerships like this have the potential to impact our role in society in the future. It looks like so much fun, but it also represents a fundamental adjustment in the traditional emphasis that has been found in early education classes of the past.

It is not just the pre-school children who are benefiting from this partnership, but all the participants of the many Marillac House programs. Stay tuned!

Community Partnerships

It is not just the pre-school children who are benefiting from collaborative efforts of this sort, but all the participants of the many Marillac House programs, from “womb to tomb”, plus the families of the program participants, plus the entire staff of Marillac, plus neighboring not- for- profit agencies like Deborah’s Place, Sanctuary and the YMCA.

When the Rush School of Nursing started bringing nursing students to Marillac House for their Community Health rotation four years ago, it was noted that there were far too many health related problems to be adequately addressed in the previously scheduled semi-annual “health fairs”. From that humble beginning has sprung a multi- pronged effort that has created a milieu of health and wellness consciousness that permeates the entire agency. In addition to counting the number of calories they eat at a meal, staff and children are counting the number of steps they take at work and at school, the number of sugars in a snack and how much sodium will change the numbers of their blood pressure. This specially educated staff of Nurse Practitioners see their role not only as providers of care but also “bridges” to assure that each client has case management so the problematic “episodic” care does not plague the patients and condemn them to the revolving door of area emergency rooms. Every child receives annual physicals as well as the requisite immunizations, and each staff member receives their pre-employment physical as well as the requisite T.B. screening. For the working poor, this is a huge benefit, for which they express their sincere gratitude. We might never know the full benefit of what these Rush nurses mean to Marillac because if they are successful (and we believe they are!)we will never see the stroke that didn’t happen, the diabetic coma that was avoided, the obesity related complications that were offset by their diligent educational efforts and individualized follow-up. When you talk to Eileen Mc Cann, the leader of this elite staff of advanced practice nurses, you know that her staff is ever vigilant to seeing more opportunities to keep those associated with Marillac House in a state of optimal health and well-being. As the advertisement for MasterCard says, there are some things that are just “priceless”.

Yes, children have a wonderful way of bringing people together, but the visionary leaders of Rush and Marillac House have a wonderful way of staying at the table and working out the details of wonderful collaborative partnerships like these that make a wonderful difference in the lives of those who need it the most. We are all the beneficiaries of these efforts because they make our world a better place….and isn’t that what it’s all about?

Marillac Social Center

A Ministry of the Daughters of Charity

212 S. Francisco Ave. l Chicago, IL 60612 l 773.722.7440