We are not coming to run your home.

Your home already contains relationships, routines, knowledge, traditions and programs that matter. Some of them took years to build and could not be rebuilt by anyone who arrived last month. We begin from respect for that, and our role is to help you accomplish more — not to install a new way of running your house.

We separate need from worth. A funding gap or a missing program is not a judgment about the people serving these children. Most of the homes we admire are short of something. It simply tells us where a partnership might help, and where it would be beside the point.

We use a consistent framework so that we are fair across homes and so that our own reasoning is visible. Each domain is reviewed together with you and rated one to five. The ratings inform a conversation — they do not replace your judgment, your context, or what you know about your own children. There is no hidden rubric, no public grade, and no composite score.

The scale. 1 = critical or a serious risk · 2 = partial and inconsistent · 3 = it works, but depends on particular people · 4 = clear, consistent and documented · 5 = quality, participation, measurement and improvement. We do not average these. An average can hide a serious protection problem, or make a home with real strengths and few resources look weak. The report shows a profile, not a mark.

Our strongest partnerships combine real unmet need with leadership that wants to build something. Need alone is not enough, and neither is enthusiasm. This is how we direct limited resources toward places where support can compound rather than evaporate.

What matters most. A home with very little funding but trustworthy leadership, clear priorities and real follow-through can be an exceptional partner. The reverse is also true: more resources do not compensate for serious concerns about integrity, child protection or the ability to deliver what was agreed.

1. DiscoveryWe learn about the home, the children, the leadership, the history, the current programs, the funding situation and the priorities you would name yourself. Mostly we listen.
2. Site visitWe come and stay long enough to be slightly inconvenient — two to four days — and work through the published instrument with you. We observe daily life, walk the building, read the weekly schedule, and talk to the staff who actually deliver and to the young people themselves.
3. Shared profileTogether we sort what we found across the fourteen domains and agree what is a strength, what is a gap and what is urgent. You see the same document we see, because it is yours.
4. A shared planWe agree on priorities, responsibilities, resources, objectives, measures and review dates. This is the first point at which anything is a commitment.
5. ImplementationYour staff deliver, trained and supported by us. Local ownership wherever it is possible, which is almost always.
6. ReviewWe look at progress honestly and decide together what to sustain, improve, expand or stop. Including stopping.

Love La Vida is built to connect resources, not simply to write checks. Depending on what the assessment finds, support might be funding, program modules, equipment, trained people, local service providers, employers, or an introduction to an organization better suited than we are.

On Pathways. Where it fits, we can offer modules from the program — social skills, English, education, work readiness and practical life skills, across five age cohorts. A partner home does not have to adopt all of it. The assessment is how we work out which parts are useful, relevant and realistic for your house, and which parts would just be extra work.

A partnership plan that nobody opens after the first month is not a plan. Ours is six elements and fits on a few pages.

1. Current stateWhat is working today, and where the constraints actually are.
2. Shared prioritiesThe small number of needs both organizations agree matter most. Small is the operative word.
3. What Love La Vida providesFunding, programming, expertise, connections, resources — written down, so nobody is guessing.
4. What the home providesLeadership, staff time, facilities, implementation ownership and local coordination.
5. Twelve-month objectivesSpecific results we intend to achieve together, with dates.
6. Measures and reviewsHow progress gets tracked, and when the two of us sit down and look at it.

This is the same chain we publish on our home page, with one link added that only a partner home can see: participation. A donor can be shown inputs and outcomes. You are the ones who know whether anybody actually turned up.

A worked example. Resources fund an English program → young people attend it consistently → measured proficiency rises → a participant qualifies for a course that was previously out of reach → a year later they are still on it. Every one of those five links is measurable, and every one of them can break. Most programs that fail break at link two and report on link one.

Capability is measured one way, everywhere. The six-rung ladder in the library is what every document uses, which means the number your team records is the same number we read. Nothing is marked as learned before rung four, and nothing counts as readiness to leave before rung five.

Measures are chosen together and kept proportionate. We are not going to build a reporting burden that takes your staff away from the children in order to prove to a donor that the children are being helped.

It is not an application for a fixed package of services. We want to understand the home, the children it serves, the people doing the work, and the opportunities that matter most to you. If it turns out we are not the right fit, we will say so quickly and try to point you somewhere better.

Love La Vida Foundation is in formation. We are honest with every home we speak to about where we are: the model is written, the first installation has not begun, and a partnership conversation today is about building something together rather than receiving something ready-made.

If any of this sounded like a fit, this is the fastest way to start. Answer what you can and leave the rest blank: we would rather hear from you now than receive something perfect in three months.