About Connections
Connections Community Support Programs, Inc. provides a comprehensive array of health care, housing, and employment opportunities that help individuals and families to achieve their own goals and enhance our communities.
Founded in 1985 and incorporated in 1991 as a subsidiary of Ingleside Homes, Connections’ original mission was to help older adults with lifelong histories of institutionalization to move into the community. Our mission expanded in 1988 to include homeless services and addiction treatment. In 1992 we divested from Ingleside and became a separate 501c3 corporation. Today, Connections is one of Delaware’s largest nonprofit organizations collaborating with government, community, corporate and other philanthropic partners to maximize services for our state’s most vulnerable citizens.
Freedom Mural Honors Veterans
In July 2016, about 100 people attended the dedication of the Veterans Freedom Mural on the north wall of Marcella’s House, our residence for formerly homeless veterans at Ninth and Washington streets in Wilmington.
The project was a partnership between Connections, the Wilmington Renaissance’s Creative District and other West Center City Wilmington stakeholders. Special thanks to Philadelphia-based muralist and public artist Eric Okdeh for making it happen!
Click here to see photos and a time-lapse video of the work in progress – 750 images taken by photographer Bob Craig over a one-week period.
Mom is Clean, Baby is Thriving at New Expectations
Emily, a Newark resident, was 23, pregnant and facing DUI and drug possession charges when she entered the New Expectations program last year. She was also hopeless.
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Click on image
“The New Expectations house is in Newark, really close to home, so I just wanted to leave and go back to doing the same things I had always done,” she said.
But she stayed. Now she has 17 months clean, the longest she’s ever had. She goes to 12-step support meetings and sees a counselor at the Connections Community Support Programs, Inc. clinic on Old Polly Drummond Hill Road. She got a job at a local retailer. Her DUI classes are almost complete. Soon, she said, she’ll be off probation. Her 9-month-old daughter is healthy.
New Expectations is a partnership between Connections and Delaware’s Department of Correction. It houses pregnant women addicted to heroin, synthetic opioids or other drugs, providing a critical alternative to incarceration. The women receive intensive outpatient drug treatment and medical care at the clinic each day.
There was no one magic moment when Emily knew she would stay clean. “It was gradual,” she said. “For a while I just assumed I would go home and go back to getting high. Then I realized that if I did that my life would only get worse and that I had too much to lose to let that happen.”
Now 24, Emily said she is in disbelief that she’s been clean this long, and grateful to the New Expectations staff. “The counselors were great – they really helped me get to this point,” Emily said. “It feels so good that everything is finally falling together perfectly for me.”