CYFS is all about kids and has been for 89 years!  

In the last year alone, we gave over 4,000 kids a chance – for a successful future, a chance for positive family interactions, a chance for quality early learning, a chance for a safe place to live.  Unfortunately, too many kids in our community are not given the chances they so greatly deserve. 

Three Areas of Focus

1. Early childhood: Getting kids off to the healthiest start possible with the skills they need to succeed in
school.

• We work with new moms helping them learn to bond with their baby and to stimulate their healthy
development. Do you know that babies are born with all of the brain cells that they will ever have? Their
experiences teach the brain cells their jobs. There is a growing body of research regarding the importance of
brain development during the first three years of life.
• We have an early literacy program for at‐risk preschoolers. We know that the average child from a low income
family arrives at kindergarten with a vocabulary of just 5,000 words, while the average child from a middle or
upper income family of the same age has a vocabulary of 25,000 words. The low income child’s vocabulary is
that of a typical three year old. Thus, even if that child is successfully completes each grade level, making one
year’s progress at a time, they will always remain two years behind their peers.
• We teach preschoolers life skills. We help them learn how to get along with others, how to manage their
conflicts, how to share and talk about their feelings. More and more research is showing that social emotional
skills are critical to school success.
• We do a lot of work to improve the quality of childcare in our community. Many preschoolers spend up to nine
hours a day in childcare. We train providers in best practices so that they might provide a stimulating
environment for the children, offering them opportunities to learn.

2. Counseling: for kids who are facing particular challenges

• We have counseling for kids who have been victims of abuse or neglect and for any of their non‐ offending
family members.
• We provide counseling and temporary shelter to teens who have run away or are at risk of running away.
• Our new program SAFE (Safe Activities For Everyone) provides supervised visitation so that kids can maintain a
relationship with both parents.

3. Parent support.

• Our ParentingMobile goes out into kids’ neighborhoods bringing support, education and literacy programs.
• We offer parenting classes and workshops.
• Our REAL Dads program works to keep dads involved in their kids’ lives.

We do a lot but it’s all geared towards getting kids off to the best start possible, addressing risk factors and barriers so that they can become productive adults.