Youth Programs Through Catholic Social Services
Catholic Social Services Youth Services Programs support at-risk children, youth, and their families with compassionate care, educational opportunity, and loving homes that affirm their worth and their potential.
A Better Way within Catholic Social Services teaches social responsibility skills and conflict management skills to youths between ages 12 and 18 who are involved in the juvenile justice system. This community program utilizes the Sanctuary Model of Trauma-Informed Care to help you with issues of chronic adversity, loss, and trauma.
Out of School Time Programs are school-based community centers that offer an array of creative after-school activities in the late afternoon aimed at youth development and family support. These programs are in neighborhoods with high poverty and crime rates and significant child welfare problems. Rooted in Catholic faith, Programs are educational, social, and recreational in nature, and serve school-aged children and adolescents from the community.
Casa del Carmen Preschool Academy, a Keystone Stars 4 childcare facility, offers the highest standard of education for 89 young learners in a safe and caring educational environment.
We understand the unique needs of families searching for high-quality preschool programs in North Philadelphia. Our bilingual staff helps ensure the needs of our children and parents are understood and met.
Our mission at Catholic Social Services is to help those with unexpected pregnancies choose life and make an adoption plan. Our adoption services allow birth parents to find support, children to find loving homes, and for families to expand.
Adoption services through Catholic Social Services assist families seeking to expand their homes and hearts with the gift of adoption. Birth parents receive counseling and other supportive services, allowing them to explore and consider their options to make an informed decision about whether to place their child for adoption.
Catholic Social Services (CSS) provides foster and kinship care services to children between birth and 21 years of age who are in need of a temporary substitute care, due to a crisis or chronic condition. The goal of the program is to achieve permanency for children in the briefest amount of time, which allows for safety, wellbeing and preventing children from a return to care.
All resource family care service is delivered with a view toward the earliest possible return of the child to the birth family. While the child is in substitute care, the Community Umbrella Agency (CUA) involves the birth family in all levels of care and planning.
All resource families are encouraged to establish a mentoring relationship with the child’s family. This relationship will help to support the child and family’s bond while the child is placed in out-of-home care.
CSS staff support the permanency planning process by providing training and education to the resource parent so that they have the requisite skills to assist the child through the reunification process or if reunification is not possible, help the child transition as they move toward another permanency. This permanency may include adoption by the resource family.
The requirements to become a foster parent include:
- Must be at least 21 years old.
- Must have a safe, stable residence with appropriate furnishings.
- Must be healthy enough to provide care for children.
- Must be able to pass criminal, child abuse and FBI background checks.
- Must be able to complete the home study process.
- Must be able to provide support to children and their families.
Co-Partnership with the Philadelphia Department of Human Services
Saint Francis & Saint Vincent Homes is a group home, treatment agency offering educational resources and other social services to teenage boys and girls. Our mission is to provide services that foster the physical, moral, emotional, behavioral, and spiritual development of the youth in our care.
Saint Francis & Saint Vincent group homes provide a transitional living program to at-risk youth. These group homes provide support services to both families and adolescents. Families are given every opportunity for involvement in the care of their child. This allows them to assist them in the meaningful care and development of their children.
By providing a continuum of care and services which address the needs of each individual seeking help, this group home environment delivers a support system to maximize the potential of each of the young people in our care.
Catholic Social Services in partnership with the Office for Catholic Education and five Archdiocesan High Schools provide Social Workers to assist with the needs of students and their families. Schools currently connected with this program are Little Flower High School for Girls, Father Judge High School for Boys, West Catholic Preparatory High School, Neumann-Goretti Catholic High School and Monsignor Bonner and Archbishop Prendergast High School.
A Partnership with the State Office of Developmental Programs
Catholic Social Services, through St. Edmond’s Home, cares for medically fragile children with a diagnosis of severe or profound intellectual and physical disabilities. Staff provides medical support, therapeutic interventions, and a range of activities and experiences for children at a 44 bed campus program and a community home for young adults. This social service offers the children opportunities to go on outings to local Philadelphia museums, movies, theatres, sporting events, and to attend school in the community. St. Edmond’s strives to provide a happy and healthy childhood, maximizing the potential of each child, ensuring their needs are met in a loving environment.
Please contact Dr. James Black for records from previous years. He can be reached at jblack@CHS-ADPHILA.ORG or by phone at 215-665-8777.
Catholic Social Services, in partnership with the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Migration and Refugee Services, provides foster care services to unaccompanied children. Catholic Social Services is recruiting foster care parents to welcome children ages 5 to 17, primarily from Mexico and Central America, into their homes. These children have come here alone and many have experienced significant trauma. What they need are caring individuals or families willing to provide a supportive foster care home environment for 2 weeks to up to 3 months while the children attend daily programming located in Northeast Philadelphia. Ability to speak some Spanish would be helpful but is not required.
While the children are in our care, they will receive case management, educational and therapeutic services on site at the program. Children are provided with medical coverage, legal services and foster parents receive a monthly stipend.
Our case management staff also works with potential sponsors in this country (family members or friends) who go through a process similar to the foster parent certification. If they and their home meet all the criteria, the child will be discharged to their care.
The requirements to become a foster parent are the same as above. If you would like more information, please complete the form above or email us at tfcinfo@chs-adphila.org
Saint Oscar Romero Transitional Living Services Unaccompanied Refugee Minors Program provides services to young men from ages 12 to 18 years. These young men are referred through the Federal Office for Refugee Resettlement.
Operated by St. Francis and St Vincent Homes, the group home serves young, unaccompanied, and newly arrived refugees displaced as a result of their immigration to the United States. The services provided allow teens the chance to become competent, productive, and independent adults capable of contributing to the larger society.
