History / Mission Statement

Mission:
St. Vincent's Services (SVS) is one of the oldest childcare agencies in New York City. Founded in 1869 as a refuge for homeless Brooklyn newsboys, its services have grown as the concerns facing society's most vulnerable have grown. Our mission, to serve needy children and their families with services which support, supplement, or substitute for the healing, nurturing, and developing relationships ideally found in family life, remains unchanged. Today, as one of the city's largest and most respected family care agencies, SVS offers a broad array of services including foster care, group homes, a program for children with AIDS and other medically fragile conditions, a licensed mental health and chemical dependency clinic, and services for the developmentally disabled. Although SVS is affiliated with the Catholic Church, 95 percent of our families are non-Catholic; in addition, 97 percent are from minority groups, mainly African-American and Latino. All of St. Vincent's Services are informed by a deep sense of love and protection for society's most vulnerable, especially the young children and families who come to us in need.

SVS History:
SVS was founded in 1869 as a home for young working boys. Originally called St. Vincent's Home of the City of Brooklyn for the Care and Instruction of Poor and Friendless Boys, it quickly became known as "the Newsboys' Home" since many of the early residents sold papers on the Brooklyn waterfront. Its original location was 10 Vine Street, right near the docks.

At that time, there were multitudes of children in New York City who either had no family or whose families were too poor to care for them. In addition, there were large numbers of immigrant children arriving at Ellis Island whose families ended up in similar straits, rendering them homeless and obliged to fend for themselves. Religious groups stepped in, becoming the pioneers in the field of childcare.

Reverend Francis J. Freel, a member of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, proposed a project "to provide shelter for homeless boys who slept out of doors without benefit of education or religion." Bishop Laughlin and others in the clergy heartily supported this effort, and the home opened on November 4, 1869 with 20 boys.

The Society bore the financial burden for running the Home, though boys paid 15 cents a day if they could afford it. None were turned away if they couldn't pay. In its early days, SVS, the first Catholic working-boys' home in America, provided housing for boys ages 7-16. From the start, boys of all religions were welcome.

The founders were also concerned about the newsboys' education. Every Sunday evening, Board members visited to "instruct the boys." Evening classes were held twice a week, and though attendance was voluntary, most of the boys showed up.

Over time, the public became more involved, with local women making clothes for the boys, people making gifts and attending events to help support the organization, and the local press writing stories about "the newsboys' home." By 1895, SVS was home to 200 boys, and had cared for more than 2,000 in its first 25 years.

In 1904, SVS purchased land at the corner of Boerum Place and State Street and built a six-story building to house the boys. At the same time, the boys were encouraged to participate in athletics, invited to play in St. Vincent's band, and encouraged to open savings accounts.

After World War I, there was a national shift in social welfare policy away from offering "relief" to the needy toward providing tools and techniques so that people could improve their own lives. SVS programs and services were already moving in that direction, and they continued to grow and evolve in accordance with the changes in thinking regarding social welfare policy.

As part of this shift, during the late 1930's the boys at St. Vincent's Home started attending local schools, both public and private. In addition to the educational benefits of attending school five days a week, the boys had more opportunities to participate in and feel a part of their local community.

The 1950's saw a considerable expansion of St. Vincent's capacity to provide a range of services and supports to its young residents. Professional staff at the home grew to include educators, coaches, and tutors. By this time most boys were attending school full time rather than working; educating the young people in its care became a priority for St. Vincent's, along with their cultural and athletic enrichment outside the classroom. During the school year the boys took part in a range of activities outside the classroom, including music, dancing, arts and crafts, sports, and scouting. A summer camp was established in New Jersey, so that the boys could spend their summers in the country pursuing leisure activities and enjoying the fresh air. To raise support for the camp, a fundraising dinner was held in 1953; it was such a success that the dinner became an annual event and continues to this day as a fundraiser for all of SVS's programs.

In 1965 St. Vincent's began to concentrate on more individualized and personalized service for each young resident. Groups homes were established and built in Queens, and the dormitories in Brooklyn were converted to smaller family-like settings. In 1967 a program was established at St. Vincent's to accept foster children, and a recruitment effort to identify and license foster homes for these children was begun. Also in 1967, a licensed Guidance Clinic was established to offer psychological support to the children at St. Vincent's; this program was expanded in 1977 to become an Outpatient Mental Health Clinic, which today hosts more than 21,000 visits per year from SVS clients as well as individuals and families from the surrounding downtown Brooklyn community.

In 1968, SVS's current leader, the Reverend Monsignor Robert M. Harris, took the helm as Executive Director of St. Vincent's. He was the first Executive Director at SVS to be trained as a social worker and hold a Master's Degree in social work. Under Father Harris's leadership, St. Vincent's transitioned from serving primarily as a "child welfare" agency (i.e., primarily concerned with ensuring that a child's basic needs were being attended to) into an institution able to address the continually evolving issues related to the new social and political era that was emerging as well as the changing backgrounds of the children in its care. At the heart of this transformation was a belief that healthy children should be raised in an atmosphere of enduring relationships, and that it was within this context that positive change could truly take place.

This philosophy became especially important in the late 1960's. Due to the extraordinary pace of social change, the children coming to SVS displayed a wider range of problems, issues, and concerns than those who had come before. Many came from traumatic home situations with abusive or drug-addicted parents, and a majority had behavioral difficulties and poor school performance. Among other things, this meant that an expansion of our mental health and medical services was in order, so that we could provide these vulnerable young people with the programs and services they would need to overcome their challenges and lead lives of promise and hope.

During the 70's St. Vincent's staff started working in teams with social workers to allow more continuity of care for the children. The agency continued to move toward coordinating and delivering its variety of services in an individualized manner based on each child's specific needs.

On the education front, the addition of special summer programs that offered tutoring and other academic assistance led to increased numbers of St. Vincent's youth successfully graduating from high school and going on to pursue a post-secondary education. The St. Vincent's Board of Trustees continued its policy of paying college tuitions for the young people in our care who were desirous of higher education, and during this decade the percentage of SVS youth going on to college increased steadily.

During the 1980s, the focus of SVS formally shifted to foster care for boys and girls, as well as group homes for boys. The building at 66 Boerum Place that opened in 1906 ceased to operate as a home for boys and was converted to serve as the administrative headquarters for the agency. By 1986 SVS had over 1,000 children in foster care and group homes. In response to the burgeoning AIDS epidemic that was ravaging New York City, in 1988 SVS established its pioneering Positive Caring Services (PCS) program to care for HIV+ infants and young children (many of whom were born to mothers who were already battling the disease). Today the PCS program has expanded in scope to include other medically fragile children who are in need of especially skilled foster parents capable of administering the often-complex treatments required by their fragile physical state.

The 1990s saw continued growth for SVS with the launch of our signature American Dream Program (ADP) in 1998. Supported entirely by private funding, the ADP helps SVS children attend college or vocational school without regard to cost. The ADP comprises a logical outgrowth of the organization's long history of supporting education as a way to provide a path to success for all SVS youth.

Under Msgr. Harris' leadership, SVS grew and expanded through the end of the 20th century and into the 21st, changing, adding and improving programs and services based on demand and funding while staying true to its mission of helping those in need.

In December 2007, St. Vincent's Services engaged Philliber Research Associates to conduct a formal evaluation of the effectiveness of the American Dream Program. The completed report was made available in January 2009. Compared to other foster care youth, St. Vincent's ADP graduates:

• Have more education;
• Are less likely to have ever been homeless;
• Work more hours, earn higher wages, have more benefits, and when unemployed are more likely to want and look for work;
• Are more likely to have both medical and dental insurance;
• Are less likely to be dependent on Medicaid;
• Are more likely to own their own homes;
• Are more likely to have savings and/or checking accounts; and
• Are generally more satisfied and more optimistic about the future.

Click here to read the complete Philliber Report.

Encouraged by this scientific evidence of the effectiveness of the ADP, in spring 2009 SVS embarked upon an initiative to build a conduit to postsecondary education and career success for students who are still in their high school years. Entitled the "Pathways to the American Dream" program, this initiative is designed to improve educational outcomes among high school students currently in our care, and to provide the types of rich exposures to higher education and career development that will help to guide these highly at-risk young people in planning for academic success, a satisfying career, and economic security. We anticipate that the enhanced academic and personal supports provided to Pathways participants will position them for successful graduation from high school and admission into the college, vocational, technical, trade, or business school of their choice, with the hope that one day they too will become members of our ADP program.

Today SVS is one of New York City's largest and most respected child welfare organizations offering a broad array of programs and services. SVS serves 850 children per year, and has a budget of $45 million.