Blockbuster Hollywood tales of superheroes are now playing at the local multiplex movie theatre near you. But there are real-life superheroes working every day to keep our society’s most vulnerable from falling off the edge. These heroes are the thousands of men and women who work at human service agencies across Illinois.
There are literally hundreds of these agencies across the state providing critical support to individuals and families that depend on child care and after-school programs, mental illness or developmental disability services, addiction treatment, victims of abuse counseling, senior home care and on and on and on. They accomplish so much with very limited resources. It’s their commitment to service and uplifting the lives of their neighbors that carries the day.
But if human service agencies stand up for the most vulnerable; who stands up for the human service agencies?
The answer is Illinois Partners for Human Service – an organization that counts many of the Horton Group clients as members. Founded in 2008, Illinois Partners for Human Service is a state-wide coalition of over 800 human service agency members. Illinois partners works to build support for human services across the state of Illinois, community by community, by building visibility for the extraordinary need for human services and the extraordinary work of the human services agencies.
Illinois Partners engages nonprofit, government, faith-based, business, and education leaders who agree that communities are healthier and safer when residents have access to bedrock public services such as early childhood learning, afterschool programs, family support, assistance to the disabled, workforce training, violence prevention, and home care for the elderly.
“No different than the bridges and roads we travel on, our human service infrastructure must be well-managed, maintained and renewed in order for people and communities to remain healthy and safe and be prepared for the economic challenges of the future,” said Judith Gethner, Executive Director of Illinois Partners for Human Service, who has been a speaker at The Horton Group’s quarterly gatherings of not-for-profit leaders. “By raising the collective voice of our coalition partners, Illinois Partners fosters collaborations to achieve quality services, adequate funding and measurable results for those most in need.”
When the human service safety-net is strong and productive, everyone wins. Standing up for human services in Illinois may not be the dramatic stuff of caped crusaders, but in terms of our honoring the ideals our society was founded on, nothing could be more important.
Illinois Partners for Human Service (IPHS)
www.illinoispartners.org.
333 S. Wabash Ave., 30th Floor, Chicago, IL 60604
312-906-2364 p • 312-906-2487 f
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