“We are delighted to receive the support of a globally recognized company that believes in quality products and services,” said Jeremy Kohomban. “Strong relationships with the business world allow us to help our young people grow into productive members of society who will someday enter the business world themselves.”

The Franz Viegener Premium line is manufactured in Buenos Aires, Argentina by F V SA. FV started in 1923 and is the largest faucet manufacturer in South America. This family-owned corporation maintains its German heritage intact over the 4 generations in Argentina; always emphasizing quality and good design in all its products. “With the Franz Viegener Premium line we go back to a more artisan approach to manufacturing: smaller production lots with attention to details in the finish that can only be achieved by the expert hands of artisans with ample experience,” says Francisco Viegener, President of FV.

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Franz Viegner’s handcrafted products are designed with uncompromising attention for details. Creativity, innovation, quality, and customer satisfaction are at the heart of the Franz Viegener company philosophy. Visit us at www.franzviegener.us.

NEW YORK, NY – The Children’s Village (CV), which provides critical services to more than 10,000 children and families throughout the New York metropolitan area, hosted its annual Circle of Friends fundraising event on Thursday, May 9 at The Lighthouse at Chelsea Piers.  This event raised more than $500,000 for its programs that serve vulnerable children and families. The event focused on the power of hopes and aspirations to change the world, and how a community can make those come to life for disadvantaged young people.

The Corporate Award was given to Crystal & Company for their long-standing partnership with The Children’s Village and support of its mission. Jamie Crystal, Executive Vice President of Client and Strategic Relations, accepted the award on behalf of Crystal & Company and was acknowledged for taking a personal interest in the work of The Children’s Village. Over the years, Crystal & Company has incorporated philanthropy and “making a meaningful difference” in the core of its business operations. Under the banner of TEAM CRYSTAL, employees throughout the country raise funds for people with disabilities, provide backpacks for children who live in shelters, play kickball with inner city kids, and  host birthday parties for children whose families are homeless. As part of the event, Crystal & Company donated $50,000 to directly support programs for young people.

Immediately following the dinner, The Children’s Village Leadership Council hosted its third annual Connect 4 A Cause Gala. More than 150 young professionals attended the after party event, which raised $20,000 for CV programs. The Leadership Council is a group of young professionals from metro New York City who volunteer time with and raise funds for children and families connected to The Children’s Village.

Anthony with trainee dog Disney

Anthony R. got up at about 4:30 Tuesday morning to get to school.

“It takes me about two hours,” he told me by phone from his school at the Children’s Village in Westchester. “I take the bus, then two trains to Metro-North, then the train here.” Until the New York City school bus strike last month, a bus picked up Anthony every morning to drive him. Now it’s up to Anthony to find his own way.

It costs him $17.25 each day, round trip — nearly $100 a week that Anthony is fortunate his foster parents can help him pay up front, since although the city will reimburse travel costs for children and families affected by the bus strike, the timing of that reimbursement is unclear. “I have all my receipts,” he says confidently. His school will help him figure out what to do with them.

Anthony is 17. He lives in Queens, and is a student at the residential school at the Dobbs Ferry campus of the Children’s Village, where he lived for a time before moving in with a foster family. He’s on the basketball team. He runs cross-country. At lunch time, most days, he works training dogs for the disabled in a program run by the school. He has passed two of the four tests he’ll need to pass to earn a Regents diploma and move toward his hope of attending a four-year college — all this after time spent catching up from falling behind academically as a younger teenager. This school, he says, is the right school for him, and it’s worth it to him to get there.

But of the 47 students who usually take the bus to attend school at the Children’s Village, only Anthony has managed to get there consistently. A few others have made it in for a day or two, but all are missing weeks of instruction, and they’re missing the school that’s meant to tether them to their futures. The school serves a specific population of children with “high behavioral needs,” most of whom lived there for a short time before returning to their own families or to foster families. They are children in need of consistency, and Anthony is rare in his ability to find a way to maintain that consistency for himself.

Anthony’s is one of thousands of bus strike stories. There are children in wheelchairs who cannot travel without a wheelchair-accessible vehicle; students with severe autism who struggle with public transportation and cannot ride alone; and children like Anthony’s fellow students at the Children’s Village, who face long commutes and a complex history that doesn’t support conquering the odds to get to school.

The more school time those children miss, the harder it will be for them to return to the place where they were — and for Anthony’s teenage classmates, the more tempting it may be not to return at all.

There’s no obvious solution to the problems posed by the striking bus drivers: while the situation the students and their families are in is untenable, the $7,000 per year that the city currently spends on busing for each child served is unsustainable as well. (Yes, you read that right: $7,000 per student per year. Los Angeles spends about $3,200, Chicago about $5,000 and Miami, $1,000.)

The strike may be off the front page, but for students like Anthony, it still looms large. For his classmates and the other students who haven’t been able to find another way to get to school, the losses aren’t easily measured in dollars. And for the moment, there’s no resolution in sight — which means that, for the moment, there’s no news. There’s only the story of Anthony, getting up at 4:30 in the morning and getting himself where he needs to go. He’ll do it again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. He has one more year to go before he graduates, and he’s not giving up.

Unfortunately, I suspect that some of his classmates, and other students and their families across the five boroughs, are feeling as if the world has given up on them.

The residence will officially open March 19 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and tour from 12-2pm. For details about the event visit http://childrensvillage.org/events.

“This new residence fills a gap that exists in Westchester County. No one is providing housing for vulnerable young adults in this age range,” said Jeremy Kohomban, President & CEO of The Children’s Village. “Westchester County remains a leader in developing a pragmatic safety-net for children and families, and with this addition, those young adults in our county that need longer-term support will have an option too. We are excited to work with Westhab on this effort, a recognized leader in providing affordable and supportive housing.”

“It has been absolutely tremendous to partner with an organization with the rich history and the youth residential expertise of The Children’s Village,” said Richard Nightingale, Vice President Youth and Family Services for Westhab. “Westchester should be commended for its expansive youth system of care and its array of services for adults and families.”

The project is funded by a Continuum of Care grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in collaboration with Westchester County. Continuum of Care grants are awarded competitively to local programs to meet the needs of their homeless clients. This funding provides critically needed emergency shelter, transitional housing, and permanent support for individuals and families and is a significant part of the Obama Administration’s strategic plan to prevent and end homelessness.

Westhab www.westhab.org is the largest nonprofit provider of affordable housing and supportive services in Westchester County, NY. Over the last 30 years Westhab has moved 6,000 homeless households to permanent housing; built or renovated 2,500 affordable housing units; placed 4,000 people receiving public assistance into employment; and delivered services to over 10,000 at-risk young people.

Bridge Builders Community Partnership and The Children’s Village Form a Strategic Alliance Designed to Enhance Capacity to Serve Children and Families in the Highbridge Community in the Bronx.

 BRONX, NEW YORK, NY — January 17, 2013 – Bridge Builders Community Partnership Initiative (BBCPI), established in 2003 as collaboration of community-based organizations committed to improving child welfare in the Bronx, and The Children’s Village (CV), a 161-year old charity serving children and families, announce a strategic alliance.

In announcing the alliance, Chairman of the Bridge Builders Board of Directors, Mr. John Rios said, “The Children’s Village is a leader that shares our values regarding the empowerment of parents, especially those involved in the child welfare and justice systems, and The Children’s Village believes in the strengths of our community.” BBCPI has been collaborating with CV since its inception, working on foster parent recruitment, parent advocate training, and a joint grant from the New York Office of Children and Family Services to provide support to kinship foster families.

The organizations will retain their independence, but are developing a strategy for effective collaboration and partnership that will enable them to best serve children and families involved with the child welfare system across the Bronx. Dr. Jeremy Kohomban, President and CEO of The Children’s Village said, “Bridge Builder’s core belief that a network of customized neighborhood services is the first and best line of defense is directly in line with the mission of The Children’s Village. Empowering struggling families to advocate for themselves is key to their success.”

As part of the alliance, Tonyna McGhee, Assistant Vice President for New York City Community-Based Services at The Children’s Village, has been named Executive Director of Bridge Builders. Along with Ms. McGhee, Dr. Lisa Gill was appointed Program Director and will be responsible for Bridge Builders’ day-to-day operations. Together the new leadership brings several decades of experience in child welfare and program development, which they will use to build upon Bridge Builders’ nearly decade-long success.

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 Founded in 2003, Bridge Builders Community Partnership Initiative is a community-based organization dedicated to improving child welfare outcomes in the Highbridge community in the Bronx, NY. Bridge Builders is a collaboration of social service providers, foundations, families, and the Administration of Children’s Services working to improve family well-being.  www.bridgebuilderscipi.org.
Founded in 1851, The Children’s Village works in partnership with families to help children develop the skills and positive attitude needed to succeed as healthy contributing adults.  Each year, CV serves more than 10,000 of New York’s most at-risk children and their families.  Programs include short-term residential programs, shelters, street outreach, foster and adoptive homes, a community center in Harlem, programs for youth involved with the juvenile justice system, and a host of family support services. http://childrensvillage.org

Getting help to our families was an even greater challenge as they are scattered throughout the worst-hit areas. Friends have been donating food, flashlights, batteries, blankets, diapers, cleaning supplies and much more, and staff continue to drive vans full of supplies to the Far Rockaways, lower Manhattan, and Brooklyn.

As staff made sure children were safe, they were dealing with their own power outages. CV provided access to hot showers  and warming centers and ran shuttles to get staff to work.

All of our locations currently have power and our school opened on Wednesday for the first time since the hurricane hit. However, it will take months for many people in our community to recover and we will continue to do what we can to help.

I grew up at the Polo Grounds Community Center in Harlem, New York. My elementary school was in the middle of the housing projects, and everybody who lived there went to school there. Everyone knew each other, but I didn’t know anyone. While the other kids were outside playing, running through sprinklers and going to the park, I was inside on my bed, curled up with a book. I had a few friends, but they were out with the others while all I wanted to do was read.

I knew that being alone was not necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes it hurt when I heard other girls laughing in their groups, because I wanted those types of relationships so badly. In a way, being alone hardened my spirits, but the time I spent with my books helped me a lot. Because I loved to read, I read so much more than the other kids. While they were outside playing, I was reading books. It helped me in school and my writing skills became stronger because I knew how other people wrote and could learn from them. My vocabulary improved, and so did my speaking. These things helped me change the way I presented myself. Plus, since I was inside reading, I was not outside getting into trouble like a lot of the kids in my community.

I wanted to be like the characters I read about, too. I didn’t want to stay where I was. I wanted more. I want to be like Greg Heffley in Diary of a Wimpy Kid because he is hilarious! I want to be like Melanie Stryder from The Host because she is strong-willed and very confident in herself. I want to be like Cam Jansen from the Cam Jansen series because she is very intuitive. And I will be like them all.

I never deviate from the goals I set for myself. I want to be a lawyer and an entrepreneur and a billionaire before I am 24. I want to write a book that will make people cry and laugh at the same time, like Sarah Dessen does. I want to be an inspiration for the little girls who are the bookworms in their schools.

I didn’t have a childhood like the ones in the movies, but I will be the adult of my dreams. No one will ever make me feel like I am not worthy, because as far as I am concerned I am everything that I need to be right now. It took a long time for me to have that sort of security in myself, but McLean from What Happened to Goodbye shows me how. Just like Madeline from the children’s book always taught me, if I stick to my dreams then they should come true, and that’s exactly what I plan to do.

Daija Spaulding
Girls Club Member at the Polo Grounds Community Center

CV is a proud partner with LitWorld’s Stand Up for Girls campaign. The campaign advocates for every girl’s right to a quality education. By learning to read and write, all girls in the world can protect themselves against poverty, poor health outcomes and lifelong struggle. Literacy is a skill that once learned, is hers forever. Let us stand together to champion the right of all girls to be Fierce, Fearless and Free.

Stand with us on 10.11.12. Visit http://litworld.org/standupforgirls to learn more and join the movement.

This post originally appeared on the Huffington Post and can be read here.

 NEW YORK, NY — The Children’s Village (CV) has been selected as one of 10 semifinalists for the 2012 New York Community Trust-New York Magazine Nonprofit Excellence Awards sponsored by The Nonprofit Coordinating Committee of New York. The awards recognize excellence in management practices and highlight the enormously important roles played by nonprofit organizations in improving lives and communities throughout New York.

Agencies were selected for this honor because they demonstrate strong, transparent, and accountable financial management; inclusive, diverse, and responsive organizational practices; and effective, ethical fundraising and resource development.

“This nomination highlights the tremendous effort our talented employees make day in and day out,” said President and CEO Jeremy Kohomban, PhD. “Guided by visionary leadership from our Board of Trustees our staff has worked very hard to effectively serve New York’s most vulnerable children and families, while being accountable to our stakeholders. We are honored to be nominated along with impressive and effective organizations,” Dr. Kohomban continued.

Six finalists will be announced in October, and three winners will be awarded at a ceremony November 15.

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 Founded in 1851, The Children’s Village www.childrensvillage.org works in partnership with families to help children develop the skills and positive attitude needed to succeed as healthy contributing adults.  Each year, CV serves close to 10,000 of the New York area’s most at-risk children and their families.  Programs include shelters and street outreach for homeless and immigrant youth, foster and adoptive homes, a community center in Harlem, and a host of family support services.

The Nonprofit Coordinating Committee of New York, Inc., http://www.npccny.org/ is the voice and information source for New York nonprofits. Established in 1984, NPCC informs and connects nonprofit leaders, saves nonprofits money, and strengthens the nonprofit sector’s relations with government. NPCC publishes a monthly newsletter, New York Nonprofits, offers workshops and roundtables on management issues, provides cost-saving vendor services, manages a Government Relations Committee that works on sector-wide government and legislative issues, and maintains a website loaded with information on operating a nonprofit. NPCC has 1,600 dues-paying members in the New York City area.

Unlike women, who are far more expressive and tend to connect verbally on relationships matters, men make connections differently. If two women had been at the table, the connection of motherhood would have been immediate. Regardless of differences in race, class, ethnicity, socio-economics, women tend to connect on the common bond of family. This is not true of men. Men tend connect on what they do or have experienced.

In the beginning of the conversation, this was the case with George and Kofi. They began by discussing the difficulties they are having with the mother’s of their children and the problems associated with having a child in foster care. But then it happened. They were asked about their own fathers and the connection happened.

George was adopted and his adopted father was not very warm. He struggled with belonging. Kofi grew up in Ghana with his grandmother and aunt. He met his father at 13 when he came to the U.S. It was the first time he had ever called anyone dad. He too struggled with belonging.

As they shared their stories, the dissimilarities disappeared. The two seemingly different men realized that besides “daddy issues”, they both had children with women from different cultures than their own. They both had sons; Kofi’s son is 26 months, George’s son (affectionately called G4) is 6 months. And they both were doing everything they could to get their sons out of care.

One of the most magical moments of this time was when George spoke of how he always tells G4 about the fun they will have in the future. “We’re gonna play baseball together and go to the zoo,” he would tell his son. Kofi encouraged George to continue. “Keep telling him about his future” Kofi told George. “You’re tongue is a pen and you are writing on his soul. In my country, when a baby is born, it is our custom for a father to make him a promise and to whisper it in his ear. Then we lift the baby up to God and ask God to help him”.

Kofi looked at his hands as if he was holding his son. “My promise to my son was that he would never have to live without a father; he would never go through what I went through. Every day, I ask God to help me, to give me strength”. Heaviness filled the room. “Exactly!” George exclaimed, “I don’t want my son to ever feel like I felt growing up—like he doesn’t belong.”

This is what happens when father’s get together at the CV Fatherhood Program. Men find strength and support in one another to help them grow into fathers. Through fatherhood classes, fatherhood support groups, trips, and supportive texting, men are taught their value as fathers and the skills to be the fathers their children need. Keeping men connected to their children, is what the CV Fatherhood Program is all about. When asked what they wanted to do as a group to celebrate Father’s Day, they all stated, “Spend time with our kids.” It looks like George’s statement to G4 is coming true—we are going to take our kids on a trip to the zoo.

-Donald

Donald Somerville
Senior Family Services Coordinator

Families often know of the struggles and challenges they are facing long before the conflict boils over. The problem is that they are often at a loss of knowing where to go to get the help they need.  Even if families go to their local social service agency for help, the protocol is to first have the family investigated to assess if there are abusive/neglectful behaviors, and only after that is ruled out are they offered services. Unfortunately, this process can take months and the problems can grow.

Preventive services provide families with the option to seek out services through a local community-based organization from a proactive standpoint as opposed to a reactive one.  Families can access preventive services by walking into an agency, and preventive providers can provide families with access to services without having to be investigated first.  This process helps families to seek the help they know they need without the threat of criticism and judgment of being investigated.

Families having the ability to know of and seek out services for their own problems and concerns further promotes the family’s ability to effectively resolve concerns and develop effective skills to address problems to hopefully prevent the need for a child welfare investigation and intervention at a higher level.  It is empowering for families to take the lead in initiating services. It supports their participation in the process because they are given the option and resources to take initiative to address the concerns with which they knew they needed more support.

New York City Children’s Services has been supporting preventive services through local providers for several decades, and within the past five years has built upon their successes through the use of evidence-based models. This is an important example to social service agencies nationwide. Preventive services are essential to removing the stigma that prevents families from feeling empowered to solve their own problems and to seeing social services agencies as their partner in success.

Bonnie Doran, LMFT
Assistant Director of Preventive Services
Bonnie is a recognized expert in preventive services throughout the NYC Metropolitan area.