Our funding sources
The 2008-2009 recession is stressing many families because of reduced work and layoffs, which increase pressure for alcohol and drug use by family members. This results in more need for intervention and counseling services, especially among these families with freshly diminished abilities to pay for services. Second Growth counseling provides young clients who are in crisis with a unique level of support, wherever and whenever, and up to 24/7. This can include staff availability at school, home, jail, an agency hearing, or a court appearance – and occasionally during evenings or weekends. Our clients know they can count on Second Growth to provide the advocacy and support they need!
The support Second Growth offers, and the support we seek in return, helps to create a client-agency-community partnership that is highly unusual in the field of adolescent services. Second Growth receives funding from diverse sources:
- Contributions from individuals
- Grants from foundations
- Corporate philanthropy
- Fees and contracts for professional development services
Each revenue source helps Second Growth continue to offer counseling and advocacy services to all clients, regardless of their ability to pay, as well as enabling Second Growth to develop new programs and models for adolescent counseling.
Many well-endowed institutions and organizations have been forced to cut back on services because of steep declines in the value of their endowments, but this is not true for Second Growth: all our income goes to providing the services this agency is well known for, and none goes to service debt or replenish a depleted endowment.
CONTRIBUTIONS
Donations from individuals, families, and businesses
Second Growth provides client services to young people in crisis, a situation which frequently accompanies or exacerbates family financial problems. Second Growth tries to facilitate help-seek!hg by young clients, and we have found that eliminating counseling fees eliminates the biggest impediment.
Instead of fees, Second Growth asks each individual and family client to give back however they can: by making donations to Second Growth for the counseling, advocacy and support provided, or by performing some form of community service.
Every client Second Growth helps has family members employed locally, who are directly affected by absenteeism that often results when an adolescent gets into a crisis situation at school or in the legal system. More and more local companies know that Second Growth has helped a family member of someone on their payroll, and these companies are among the first to experience the positive economic impact of Second Growth's effective interventions.
Some companies, such as Red River Computers, donate to our general agency operations, while others prefer to underwrite a specific program, as Hypertherm has done for our young women's initiatives. Others choose to pay for a presentation by Second Growth at their local school, or for another town that needs but cannot afford such programs, as described in our "Wish List."
FOUNDATION AND CORPORATE GRANTS
Many local companies, as well as foundations whose missions include adolescent healthcare, have made generous and sustaining grants that help support Second Growth:
- Anne Slade Frey Trust
- The Byrne Foundation
- New Hampshire Charitable Foundation
- Upper Valley United Way
- Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
- Grafton (NH) County Human Services
- Hypertherm, Inc.
- Red River Computers
FEES AND CONTRACTS FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT SERVICES
Part of Second Growth’s mission is to train other counseling professionals to use of successful model programs in their own communities. The fees for these trainings provide an important part of our revenue stream, and help fulfill Second Growth’s objective to be a sustainable agency for many years to come.
Fees for training and presentations
- Professional development training and workshops
- Presentations in schools and communities
- Consulting services to schools, agencies and organizations
Presentations for elementary, middle and high school students; teaching and guidance staffs; and PTOs and community groups help bring Second Growth's teachable, transferable, creative advocacy for adolescents that is widely recognized as among the best available. Training others to replicate Second Growth's programs is a crucial component for sustaining Second Growth's innovative methods across an ever-widening area.
- In the Upper Valley of Vermont and New Hampshire:
- $300 for 2-hour presentation, plus milage and materials
- $400 for half-day service, plus milage and materials
- Vermont and New Hampshire, more than 50 miles from WRJ:
- $500 for half day, plus milage
- $750 for full day, plus milage
- In other New England states:
- $750 for full day, plus milage and lodging
- Beyond New England:
- $1500 for full day, plus travel and lodging
- $2000 for two consecutive days, plus travel and lodging
Fee schedule effective 1/1/09
COUNSELING FEES
Second Growth offers counseling and advocacy for adolescents and young adults – and their families – without set fees, because cost of services are the most common barrier between young clients and counseling. Since the Second Growth agency has no endowment to cover the costs of counseling and advocacy work, clients and families are asked to make donations to Second Growth at whatever level they can, or to give back to the community in some form of service.
SUPPORT GROUP FEES
Second Growth receives generous underwriting grants from foundations, local corporations and individuals that cover the professional and administrative costs of our support groups, most of which meet weekly.
Our support group underwriters include:
- DHMC
- Grafton County Human Services
- Hypertherm, Inc.
- Upper Valley United Way
For further information about becoming a sponsor, contact Michael Whitman, chairman of Second Growth’s board of directors.
Giving back
What you can, when you can… however it works for you
Everyone needs help at some time, and everyone has something to give.
Second Growth is an independent, non-profit agency that provides counseling on an as-needed basis to young clients and their families in one-on-one sessions and in small peer groups. Our contract agreements with the Lebanon School District and The Sharon Academy allow us to serve students at those schools and their families at no cost.
We also serve other adolescent clients who hear of our counseling program by word-of-mouth or by professional referrals. We try to eliminate any barrier to counseling young clients, but we can only provide a limited amount of counseling at zero cost.
The Better Choices program is grant-funded by United Way and provides individual clients up to six sessions for assistance with the issues of substance abuse, violence, or shoplifting/vandalism. After completion of the six sessions, clients are welcome to join our groups – also grant-funded – through Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and Grafton Country Human Services.
For clients who seek counseling outside these funded programs, Second Growth asks them to give back, in some way, to the mission of helping others.
Giving back is an important component of helping Second Growth to help others: financial contributions help Second Growth keep its doors open, and donations of service that our clients give to others keeps the spirit of our work alive. Each client should determine how they can best contribute to the mission of compassionate service.
Second Growth’s suggestions:
- Donate to Second Growth whatever the client or family can afford, for each hour of counseling, along the scale of $10 to $60 per session.
- Donate an hour of community service for each hour of counseling. Our counselors know of many service opportunities in Upper Valley community.