Christine Hoeflich-Olley
When Christine Hoeflich-Olley sat down for an interview about her work with Home Based Programs, a Parents as Teachers affiliate in Delaware, she’d recently run an errand that probably wasn’t listed on her job description.
“I just happened to see a friend had beds she was giving away,” she said. “I brought them here to the office in my car.”
The beds were much more than just furniture; they were the latest step in a series of successes for a mother on her caseload who had also experienced her share of setbacks.
“She’s been working through so much,” Hoeflich-Olley said, including substance use and incarceration.
Hoeflich-Olley encouraged her to apply for a full-time position at the organization where she worked temporarily, and though the mother had doubts about her suitability, she landed the job. It wasn’t the perfect position, but she stuck with it, applied for the next one – a better fit – and landed that, too. A housing voucher soon followed.
“She’s been technically unhoused for a couple months,” Hoeflich-Olley said, but after a difficult search, “she just finally got herself a place.”
It’s not a perfect spot, but it does have space for two beds – which she picked up from Hoeflich-Olley’s office.
She still experiences stressors, Hoeflich-Olley notes, but she knows where to find help, and she asks for it.
The HeART (Healing and Recovery Together) project through Parents as Teachers seeks to identify and strengthen the many ways that parent educators walk with substance-affected families in their care. Thanks to a grant from the Elevance Health Foundation, work like Hoeflich-Olley’s can benefit from ongoing research and tools so that caregivers around the world can continue to take steps of success.