Condoleezza Rice said, “If I can look at your zip code and I can tell whether you’re going to get a good education, we’ve got a real problem.” This sentiment is central to everything we believe at COR.
Since 2019, Purpose Built Schools Atlanta (PBSA) has partnered with COR, a community-based non-profit providing wraparound care and essential services to students, families, and staff members across our cluster of schools. Embedded within Carver STEAM Academy, COR has dedicated the better part of four years to caring for this community in the many ways communities need care.
It can be extremely difficult to define wraparound care. Sure, it sounds great and gives a loving and warm visual, but what does it actually mean? What happens when five dedicated women – a social worker, a counselor, a family advocate, an educator, and a non-profit accountant – come together to support a community?
Wraparound care looks like…
Wraparound care looks like picking up the phone on December 27th when Ms. J needs to get to work, but her Marta card is nowhere to be found. Wraparound care is connecting LGBTQIA+ identifying students with an ally and advocate from the Fulton County DA’s office. Wraparound care is providing essential support to families from the Forest Cove relocation project after other services have ended. Wraparound care is graduating the entire 9th grade class through the Love is Not a Number training, teaching students about the risks associated with human trafficking. Wraparound care is holding space for Carver staff and students after the death of a beloved former teacher. Wraparound care is Ms. P stocking up on fresh and diverse food choices from the CORner Store to feed her family for the week. Wraparound care is when Carver staff bring students by the mini Hub to access much-needed hygiene products or clothing during the school day so they don’t have to go home and miss vital learning time. At COR, wraparound care means meeting the entire community wherever they are and providing the support necessary to keep students thriving at school.
Wraparound care is taking the vast skill set and passion of a small and devoted team and pouring it all back into this community of students, families, and PBSA staff. Recently, one of our COR moms wrote about healing the generational trauma impacting her family, and replacing it with generational love. This is what we aim for at COR – to support this entire community in pursuit of generational love!
