SVS Executive Summary

Founded in 1869 as a refuge for homeless Brooklyn newsboys, today St. Vincent’s Services (SVS) is a full-service agency providing comprehensive services and support to young people and their foster, birth, and adoptive families in an atmosphere of inclusiveness and caring. 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, even as our objectives and programs have grown to meet the increasingly complex needs of children and families in our city.

Our Family Foster Care and Adoptive Services-one of the largest programs of its type in New York City-offers adoption and post-adoptive services as well as intensive case management and support services for our young people and their foster and birth families. Click here for more information on our Family Foster Care and Adoptive Services.

Our Youth Residential Services (YRS) comprise nine residences located in Queens and Staten Island where dedicated, round-the-clock staff help our young people achieve stability and become healthy, active members of their group home as well as the larger community. In 2008 SVS launched our new Children’s Community Residences (CCR) program serving boys and girls between the ages of 13-18 who have behavioral and/or emotional needs that prevent them from residing in a family setting. Click here for more information on our Youth Residential Services.

Our Behavioral Health Services comprise an outpatient Mental Health Clinic that provides comprehensive services to both SVS clients and the general public, including: crisis intervention; individual, family, and group psychotherapy; an Outpatient Chemical Dependence Treatment Program; and our Clinic Plus program. Click here for more information on our Behavioral Health Services.

Our Positive Caring Services provide care and support for the families of medically fragile infants and children facing a range of complex conditions, including HIV/AIDS, cerebral palsy, Spina Bifida, brittle bone syndrome, and autism. Click here for more information on our Positive Caring Services.

Through our signature American Dream Program (ADP) promising young collegians are provided with tuition assistance, tutoring, and counseling, as well as room and board, health insurance, and incidental living expenses through graduation-even past the age of 21 when all government support ceases. The ADP is at the forefront of our efforts to ensure that when our children leave us, they do so with marketable skills which allow them to support themselves for the rest of their lives. Click here for more information on the American Dream Program.