St. Christopher's main aim is to help the community by offering many programs to assist in their living conditions. They have several services ranging from foster care, after care, camps to substance abuse treatment.
FOSTER BOARDING HOME
St Christopher's offer a foster boarding home with well-trained staff of licensed social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists and administrators who work with birth and foster parents to provide temporary homes for more than 1,200 children per year. They collaborate with Children Services that protect endangered children by removing them from homes where there have been serious problems resulting in the need for temporary placement in foster care. St. Christopher's places children with qualified foster parents whom they train to equip with good parenting skills and the patience to listen and care. While children are in care, the birth family receives support services to help them discover and use their strengths to help make reunification swift and lasting.
An integral part of their comprehensive support system is the Parent Advocates program . Parent Advocates are parents who have been reunited with their children. Now, they work with St. Christopher's helping birth parents while their children are in care. Their experience is an invaluable complement to the important work St Christopher's does.
Foster parents expressed a need for additional support as well, so they created a Foster Parent Support Program , including the foster parent help line. This unit consists of a telephone help line staffed by a full-time worker and a team of Foster Parent Advocates (successful foster parents who have been trained to function as a source of support and as advocates for other foster parents.)
AFTER CARE
Once the child is reunited with the birth family, St. Christopher's maintains contact as part of the After Care Program . Their first goal is to make every attempt possible to return the child to the biological parent(s). After Care ensures that the support resources that were available while the child was in care are still available to the family after the child is home.
CHILDREN'S HEALTH SERVICE
Children's Health Service continues its long-standing service to needy families and their children by providing full medical services, social work and family care. Through these facilities, St Christopher's serve more than 2,500 people a year. Bilingual staff is present in each facility.
SUBSTANCE ABUSE TREATMENT
St. Christopher's offers substance abuse treatment. Families and children receive quality care and comprehensive services include primary-care facilities, housing, an AIDS residential care facility, day care, educational and vocational services and job training programs.
For all of the adolescents in their care, they provide a substance abuse evaluation within 30 days of placement at one of the facilities. As a result of this comprehensive evaluation, recommendations are made for one of three types of treatment:
a) Therapy for residents who are substance abusers
b) Therapy for residents who are the children of alcoholics or substance abusers
c) Education/prevention counseling.
SPIRITUAL SERVICES
St Christopher's Spiritual Life and Awareness department helps families and children to reconnect to their spiritual roots. This department acts as a liaison between the family and their place of worship to create an expanded and permanent support network. Spiritual Life also sponsors special events such as retreats and Black History Month celebrations. The retreats and activities serve as a refuge for parents and adolescents to refocus and gain strength. The Spiritual Life department also sponsors the St. Christopher's Choir . The Parent Choir, Adolescent Choir and combined choirs perform at both agency and outside events.
DREAMYARD
DreamYard Drama Project is an outside program that has come in to work with the parents in their Parent Advocate program. DreamYard has worked with their parents to create a play based on their experiences - situations that led them to the foster care system, their experience of the system and their fresh start after receiving help.
FAMILY DAY CARE
Their Family Day Care Program enables many working parents to continue to work while their children are being safely cared for by child care providers, fully trained by St. Christopher's. More than 170 children were being cared for last year while their parents worked, or went to school to improve their quality of life
CAMP CARE
An additional benefit of the Foster Care Program is Camp CARE (Clean Air, Recreational Experience) . Camp CARE is offered to foster children and their young brothers and sisters during the summer months. The camp combines therapeutic services with traditional summer camp activities. The setting is one where children can continue to grow emotionally while playing, learning and having fun. For one camp session during the summer, Camp CARE is open to the teen mothers in their Mother/Baby Program . These mothers bring their young children to camp with them. Camp CARE is open to children from other foster care agencies.
|
