All our new employees and most of our current employees have gone through Fatima Silva on their journey to becoming an Ädelbrook employee as she is our Talent Acquisition Partner. Fatima exemplifies our values of compassion, commitment and trust. Her welcoming manner and desire to help gives our applicants a wonderful first impression.

Fatima has been with Ädelbrook for 5 years and has paved the way for hundreds of applicants to become employees. Our recruiting sector has seen a sizable growth over her tenure and Fatima now leads 2 additional staff members who all work tirelessly to fill vacant positions. Her ability to remember a name is remarkable as is her ability to use alternative means to reach potential applicants.

While away from work Fatima enjoys spending time with her 3 beautiful daughters. She also enjoys tennis, soccer, and traveling. Fatima has the artistic ability to plan and decorate for parties and events. We feel lucky that she has shared this talent with us.

Ann Burgoyne, is our first community volunteer to join the Youth and Community Advisory Board. This board’s purpose is to:

Provide a way for our youth and staff to come together with the community to be involved with each other through conversations, events, fundraising for those events, planning of work groups (painting, landscaping) and more.

Create independence in different environments.  Interact with other community members that our youth normally would not.

Expand access to community activities and on-grounds classes and/or demonstrations.

Ann loves listening to the young adults who join the meetings of our Advisory Board. She fit right in and was able to connect with and come up with wonderful ideas to support our children and young adults. Because of COVID-19, our meetings have been virtual or not at all. We all look forward to the time when we can come together and once again brain storm ideas to help our children and young adults. Ann has long been associated with Ädelbrook through the Bethany Covenant Church and her husband, Howard, who is on Ädelbrook’s Board of Directors.

Breanna is a recent graduate of the East Hartford Learning Center (EHLC). When she arrived at Adelbrook 2 years ago she had several obstacles she had to overcome to reach her end goal of earning her high school diploma. Breanna was always a very smart and capable student when it came to her academics. However, she struggled with having low attendance and some behavioral challenges that prevented her from reaching her full potential. Like any student being transferred to a new school she had little trust in her teachers and staff at first. Over time, Breanna was able to build trusting relationships with staff and was able to talk about some of her challenges.

These relationships were the key to her success because the staff was able to support her, listen to her, help her, and guide her to a place she was comfortable in to be able to work on those challenges. Only then was she able to improve her attendance and invest in her focus on completing high school. Breanna earned high honors almost every quarter while in our program. She also found an outlet to cope with her challenges and that is writing.

Breanna enjoys helping others and has found by writing about her experiences she not only helps others but helps herself as well. Breanna has become another one of EHLC many success stories that not only inspires staff and students but reminds us all that when we persevere anything is possible.