Northeast Parent & Child Society Jobs and Profile

Our Vision for America is a country where every child is healthy, safe, and thriving; where all children develop to their potential, supported by family and community; where all children are nurtured, getting what they need to succeed; where all children grow into responsible adults who are able to make positive contributions to family and society.

Our Mission is protecting children, preserving families, and strengthening the communities we serve. 

Our Most Important Assets

The thousands of children and families we love, serve, and learn from everyday

The inspired vision and community leadership provided by our Board of Directors

The professional ability and selfless dedication of our staff and foster parents

The compassion and generosity of our community friends, donors, and volunteers

Our ongoing partnerships with government agencies, community leaders, and child advocacy organizations in meeting the needs of those we exist to serve
Hopeless Conditions Confront the Children We Serve in Our Community

Almost all of the children we serve are from families that live in poverty.  More than 80% of these children are white, and have a working parent.  From Children’s Defense Fund data, we know that poverty robs children’s lives of health, education, hope, and dreams.  Children in poverty are more than twice as likely to be abused or neglected, three times as likely to live in substandard housing, and eight times as likely to not have enough food.  They are worn down by fighting a chronic war against sickness, family breakdown, neighborhood and family violence, drugs, fear, and shame, struggling to get attention at home and school.  It is hard to succeed in life without hope, and it is hard to have hope when faced with hopeless conditions.

Children in poverty do not grow or develop as fast as other children physically, mentally, or educationally.  They begin school well behind their middle-class peers because they are not read to, are not talked to, do not have books in their house, and are not provided quality child care or preschool.  They are twice as likely to be tired and hungry at school, or to repeat a grade, and three times as likely to drop out of school, be expelled from school, or require special education classes.  They are also only half as likely to obtain a college diploma, and three times as likely to be poor as adults.

The poor children we serve are also less likely to have a father at home, the stability of a married family, the consistent support and affection of two parents, a steady family income, or extended family resources, and, as they grow older, are twice as likely to end up on welfare, to be arrested, to be convicted if arrested, and to be sentenced to prison.

Our children desperately want, but often find it hard, to grow up and trust adults and the world.  They are almost always afraid – afraid of being hungry; of having no place to sleep; of having a mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, or grandparent disappear or be killed; of being bitten in bed by a rat or crawled on by roaches; of being accosted by a gang member or drug peddler in the streets; of being too hot in the summer or cold in the winter; of being disrespected, ignored, and lonely in a world that is passing them by.

These unfortunate children that we serve, the youngest and most vulnerable citizens of our community, are poor, often homeless and abused, as well as under-stimulated and neglected during the most important years of brain, emotional, and social development.  These are our children.  They are our responsibility, and the future of our community.

Our Goal: Leave No Child Behind

Thousands of children in the Greater Capital Region currently live outside of their natural homes, and every year the situation worsens.  Families are struggling against poverty and ignorance and hopelessness, and are unable to adequately provide for the health, education, and welfare of their own children.  While societal stressors continue to increase for these parents and children, pushing more families into crisis, government funds for prevention and family preservation services are being reduced, even though these programs are far less disruptive than out-of-home care, and cost 5 to 10 times less to fund.  Without these community-based support services, children continue to be forcibly removed from their natural homes at an alarming rate.

Further concerns also exist regarding the appropriate placement and care of children once they are removed from their natural homes.  The ideal environment for foster children can be found in loving surrogate families in their own communities, with foster parents trained to help relieve their trauma and disabling conditions. Professional staff are also available for necessary support and therapeutic services, and to prepare the natural family for eventual reunification with their children.  

Unfortunately, sufficient numbers of trained foster families are oftentimes unavailable.  In addition, most children being removed from their natural homes today have severe psychiatric, emotional, and behavioral deficits, and require much more intensive care. Residential treatment centers, group homes, independent living programs, and special education services are required to stabilize behaviors, relieve emotional trauma, and prepare these troubled children to survive and thrive.  However, even when treatment is successful, many children’s parents are often deemed unfit and their parental rights are terminated, requiring the children to be placed in adoptive homes.  Unfortunately, many of these children are never adopted, and languish for years in the foster care system, growing up feeling abandoned and unwanted and unable to cope with adulthood. 

Today the needs of many of our children are so extreme that they must be placed in mental health hospitals or juvenile detention facilities, or sent out-of-state for more specialized treatment at 20 times the cost of prevention services. Already uprooted from their natural homes and families, these institutional placements usually require children to be removed from their own communities and school systems as well, severing all ties with everything familiar and thereby causing even further trauma in their lives, removing all possible hope.  Even worse, they may end up running away, or homeless, or dead.

These are our troubled children, the most vulnerable among us, and the manner in which we treat them reflects the conscience of the Greater Capital Region. It is our duty and moral responsibility to love and care for all our children, to provide for their future in our community, and to leave no child behind.

Our Solution: Create a Caring, Supportive Community

Until forty or fifty years ago, the Greater Capital Region was comprised of many distinct neighborhoods, each with its own sense of culture and connectedness.  Children and families identified with their neighborhoods, and felt familiarity and security in their community.  Problems that arose were addressed by local groups and individuals and rarely required outside intervention.  If a family had a crisis occur, neighbors would lend a helping hand.  Families looked out for each other’s children, and helped keep them out of trouble and on the right track.  They cared for each other.  They shared the responsibility of growing the community, child by child, family by family. 

During the last several decades, life has become much more complicated.  Distinct neighborhoods have grown into urban sprawl, and much more effort is required to survive and thrive in today’s economy.  Families are kept busy trying to meet their own needs, and have little time to get to know their neighbors, much less help them out.  Substance abuse, immoral sex, violence, commercialism, poverty, and declining values have also contributed to the erosion of our community, as well as to the creation of a class of societal victims and have-nots that are unable to survive or succeed on their own.  The most traumatized victims of this disintegration are the poverty-stricken children and disenfranchised families that Northeast Parent & Child Society serves.  On their behalf, with love in our hearts, it is our goal to re-engage the community in taking care of their own damaged children, to partner with us and change their lives for the better.  It takes more than a village to raise a troubled child – it takes a caring, supportive community.

Our Secret to Success: Community Partnerships

With family crises increasing and prevention funding decreasing, Northeast is striving to create a broad systemic change that empowers local citizens in the Greater Capital Region to help take better care of their own poor and hurting children.  With our leadership, we hope to widen and strengthen the circle of available community caregivers, and provide easier access to life-enhancing resources and opportunities for our children. 

With most community members anxious to help resolve the current crisis facing our most vulnerable children, Northeast is developing a variety of community partnerships throughout the region to facilitate success in creating a safety net for the children and families we exist to serve.  The desired outcomes to be achieved by this process include:

*Strengthened community capacity to provide better care for their troubled children
*Increased prevention of family dissolution through stronger community support
*Marked reduction in out-of-home and out-of-community placements
*Expanded number of foster parents, adoptive parents, mentors, and child advocates
*Better informed citizenry regarding the needs and issues of vulnerable children
*Increased quality-of-life activities and opportunities available to foster children
*Improved accessibility to community resources for at-risk children and families