Dear CHS Team Members:

Thank you all for what you do each and every day to ensure CHS is on-track to become the leader in child welfare and family stability, our aspirational goal. Our leaders and our board have been hard at work, creating strategic plans and establishing focus projects from now through 2026. Highlights include:

Establishing a new campus in Rapid City. This includes new programs, intentional building design, successful fundraising with new donors, development of a big buddy and expanded volunteer programs, as well as outstanding brand building. Once we get started, it will be extremely important to stay on time and in alignment with budget. While we have had a long-term presence in the Black Hills, Rapid City is a large market for us and requires significant ongoing effort to ensure our success.

Successfully transition into our new dining and kitchen space on Sioux Falls Campus. Our teams are excited to see their new dining option. The building project has been underway over the fall and winter months, and we look forward to hosting celebrations as we move into the new space. The building offers state of the art kitchen and dining options, as well as new space for much needed storage for the residential and school programs.

Establishing a new care model with Hope as a Science at the center. Our program leaders came together to research the best care model and collectively agreed to adopt the Science of Hope as the core to our campus wide programming. All staff will be engaged in the introductory description and training of the Science of Hope. Training will be provided on campus by founders and leaders from the University of Oklahoma. Stay tuned for more information as details will be coming mid-summer.

Establishing outpatient behavioral health therapy within each of our programs. As child welfare continues to evolve towards less inpatient care and more outpatient care, CHS is preparing to fill a gap in so many of our communities that need access to therapy services, while keeping families intact.

Successfully achieving new accreditation for all of our programs. In the past, the Joint Commission provided required accreditation for the residential treatment and our emergency shelter. By year -end, we anticipate all of our programs will attain COA (Council On Accreditation). The accreditation will provide review and accreditation across the entire cascade of programs and support services at CHS. This requires review of our policies to ensure all are updated as well as newly written as needed, particularly in the Finance and Accounting areas.

Completing two nationally benchmarked studies. In order to ensure we are nationally, regionally and locally competitive in all of our salary ranges, we have contracted with HUB International. Communication of and implementation of new salary targets will be coming to all of you soon. And to understand more about our employee engagement, your next survey will include benchmarking across all non-profit social services agencies across the country through . In addition, advisors will help us with plans to improve and enhance employee engagement overall.

Establishing succession plans for all senior staff and Director levels. This will ensure we have a plan in place when these staff members retire or change jobs.

I hope you are as excited as I am to see these important projects through and that you feel CHS has positive momentum! That said, the magnitude of the work requires some changes in structure and reporting. 

Effective April 1, the following changes occurred:

Mark Niemeyer became our new Chief Administrative Officer, with “boots on the ground” responsibility for our Rapid City project. We are grateful Mark is able to be personally present to ensure success in one of Children’s Home Society’s most significant moves. Mark will also supervise facilities throughout CHS as well as maintain accountability for IT. Mark has both operations and industrial construction experience in his background with a focus on health, safety and environmental. Clinton Hubers, our newly hired Director of Facilities will report to Mark, effective upon his start date of April 15, 2024. Clinton comes to us with over 20 years of experience, including his most recent role as a regional Vice President of Facilities for a large property management company, serving a three-state area. Mark will split his time between Sioux Falls and Rapid City and will maintain offices in both communities.

Shannon Clark will focus exclusively on managing our significant Finance and Accounting function which continues to grow in complexity, risk, volume and sheer size. When I joined CHS our budget was $26M. Beginning in July 2024, our budget will be $37M, a 42% increase. And the overall assets exceed $200M. Managing this level of investment and a complicated budget along with creating new policies to ensure compliance requires an increasing share of Shannon’s time. Her work on our margin & mission initiatives has greatly improved funding from the state and soon from the city of Sioux Falls and the counties. Shannon will maintain oversight of our grants program which will expand as we apply for more complex federal grants.

Deanna Larson has hired a Clinical Director of Care to lead our newly established outpatient therapy business. Malia Hoback will begin her new role May 1, 2024. Malia comes to CHS from Avera Behavioral Health where she spent 10 years in various leadership roles including her most recent role as Director of Inpatient and Outpatient Care and Addiction Therapy.

Jon Mammenga has assumed oversight of our marketing and communication function, a complement to his externally focused fundraising. Jon and his team have a heavy load to ensure our Rapid City fundraising is successful. To allow him to focus exclusively on these areas, our volunteer recruitment program will move to Human Resources, as a natural extension of recruiting staff. Thus Faron Lais, the leader of our volunteer program in Sioux Falls, will report to Human Resources leadership and Abby Sharp in our Rapid City office will have a dotted line to HR for the part of her position involving volunteer recruitment.

Allison Sanderson will assume responsibilities for Human Resources and Volunteer Recruitment as our new Chief Human Resources Officer, allowing Mark Niemeyer to move to other critical areas of need. Mark has successfully implemented extraordinary improvements in pay, systems, benefits, staffing and employee engagement since 2020 and we are grateful for his expertise. Allison came to CHS as a leader in Human Resources from Southeastern Behavioral where she led Human Resources for five years, reporting to the CEO. Allison holds a Senior Certified Professional Certificate, the highest certification available through SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management).

Thank you for your continued support to all we serve and for helping us transition these responsibilities. You make a difference each and every day in fulfilling our mission. There will be more details in the coming weeks and months. Rest assured these changes will be covered once again during our upcoming All Hands. Should you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me directly.