Today, there are about 500,000 children in America who can’t live at home, and about 2 million children who are at risk of being removed from their homes.
About 120 years ago, the organization that is now called Northeast Parent and Child Society, consisted of a group of a few Schenectady women who wanted to do something to help the homeless children of their city. They formed an organization called the Children’s Home of Schenectady. Years later, they merged with Parkhurst Parent and Child Center to form the Northeast Parent and Child Society.
Currently, the organization serves 22 counties in New York State, from the border of Canada all the way down to Westchester County. Northeast Parent and Child Society has many programs and serves many purposes, but it has one goal: Our goals are to relieve trauma and to teach people the skills they need to pull themselves and their families out of poverty for good, said Laura Alpert, vice president of communications for Northeast Parent and Child Society.
The organization helps 5,000 children and family members in need each year through a variety of programs, ranging from placing children in foster care to working with families to teach parents and children to lead healthy, productive lives. The program has a simple philosophy: Once they make sure each child is safe and receiving what he or she needs to succeed, they try to make sure that each child grows up to be a responsible, contributing adult.
`We bring love to create hope so that people will make the effort who have been victimized by society to succeed,` said Jim Johans, CEO of Northeast Parent and Child Society.
According to Johans, 80 percent of the children and families they serve live in poverty. Their average family consists of a single, working mother who has one or two jobs (both of which are part time, which means the mother doesn’t get benefits) and two or three children.
`If you live in poverty you’re eight times more likely to go to bed hungry than your suburban peer, you’re three times more likely to fail,` said Johans.
Johans provided the following statistics gathered from a number of databases, including the Child Welfare League of America, about families living in poverty:
In the United States there are about half a million children who can’t live at home and at least 2 million children who are at risk of being removed from their homes because of abuse and neglect.
If you grow up in poverty, by age 6, on average you are 10,000 words behind in your vocabulary than children who do not grow up in poverty.
In Schenectady’s Hamilton Hill area alone, there are approximately 2,500 young people ages 16 to 24 who are unemployed and out of school.
In the city of Albany, 31 percent of children live in poverty, in the city of Schenectady, 31 percent of children live in poverty, and in the city of Troy, 28 percent of children live in poverty.
Children who live in poverty do not grow or develop as fast as other children mentally, physically or educationally. They are twice as likely to be abused or neglected, three times as likely to live in substandard housing, and eight times as likely not to get enough food, according to the Children’s Defense Fund Data.
`Poverty is at the root of the problem the families in our care face, so that’s why we do offer such a wide array of services, because there are a variety of problems,` said Alpert.
`There could be domestic violence, abuse or neglect, or substance abuse problems, but there are also choices.
Parents have to make a choice: ‘Do I stay home with my kids and make sure they don’t get into trouble in the afternoon and evening? Or do I go to work and put food on the table?’` said Alpert.
Johans discussed how it’s easy for people to blame the victims and say that it’s their own fault for not working harder or getting their lives together, but in many situations, without help from an outside source, it’s impossible.
Northeast Parent and Child Society offers 24 programs, ranging from sexual abuse treatment to foster home placement.
The Children’s Shelter is an intermediate facility for children who have to be removed from their homes. They stay at the shelter while professional clinicians evaluate the child and family and recommend the most appropriate long-term living situation for the child.
The goal of the Family Preservation and Re-Unification is to strengthen families so that children who are at risk of being placed in out-of-home care can remain with their natural families, and for children who are already living out of home can be reunited with their families. However, one of the big emphases is on education.
`From our standpoint, education is [often times] the key to pull yourself out of that intergenerational cycle out of poverty,` said Alpert. `There are all sorts of forms of education besides high school and college.`
Alpert discussed how, in certain situations, professionals will go into someone’s home and assess their living situation. For example, they might notice that someone doesn’t have an alarm clock, which means their kids can’t get up for school on time ` so the professionals will make sure the family gets an alarm clock and they’ll make sure that the home is cleaned up. They’ll help parents and kids budget themselves. Northeast Parent and Child Society will teach the parent or child the necessary skills so that they can become employed.
`That’s where the career development programs come in — job training, job mentors, job expectation, helping people get their GEDs,` said Alpert.
`They have classes just for our young people at SCCC, and they’re part of our YouthBuild Schenectady Program. What happens is they get their GED if they don’t have it already, and they learn [a new trade].`
Northeast Parent and Child Society continues to grow.
`We’re focused on primarily helping young people succeed as adults — that is our core, that is what we’re focused on,` said Johans. `There are two kinds of people ` givers and takers ` we’re trying to turn our kids in poverty from takers into givers. It is really what we’re focused on.`
For more information on the Northeast Parent and Child Society, including information on how to become a volunteer, visit its Web site: www.neparentchild.org.“