The SPA 5 Network is designed to help foster relationships between Human Service Providers in Bronx Community District 4 and 5. At monthly meeetings, network members can hear about new programs, and present their programs to other service providers.

The Early Childhood Center aims to improve outcomes for very young children with constitutional and/or environmentally based developmental vulnerabilities by providing developmental assessment and interventions, and by supporting young children's social-emotional development through the provision of mental health services and supports to children and their caregivers, and by strengthening the parent-child relationship.

The Early Childhood Center coordinates the Therapeutic Visitng project for the Bridge Builders Project.

For 11 years, the Bronx Community Pride Center has been the only agency in the Bronx providing critical direct services to LGBT seniors, youth and adults, acting as a lifeline for many of NYC's most vulnerable citizens. Programs include Counseling & Case Management, The Spot Next Door after-school program, Operation Home Base runaway and homeless youth center, Health Link Line Information and Referral Hotline, Sexuality Matters Workshops for Providers, "L" Group Women's Program, Boys & Girls Transgender Group, Safe SPOT Program partnership with the Bronx Business Community, and HIV Prevention and Services. Above all, the Bronx Community Pride Center is a cultural home that nurtures our growing community here in the Bronx.

The Bronx Early Childhood Direction Center's mission is to help parents and professionals locate and use community services that are designed for children (age five and under) with special needs or handicaps. Bronx ECDC offers early intervention strategies to assist children and families with children with special needs.

The Child Welfare Organizing Project (CWOP) is a parent / professional partnership dedicated to public child welfare reform in New York City through increased, meaningful parent involvement in service and policy planning. Founded in 1994 with a grant from the Child Welfare Fund to the Hunter College School of Social Work, CWOP’s early research led to the conclusion that clients, particularly biological parents, had practically no voice in NYC’s public child welfare system.

Today, parents who have had direct, personal experience with the system

• Have formed an active Parent Advisory Work Group to the New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS)

• Work as peer advocates in over twenty foster care, preventive, and legal services organizations

• Were instrumental in passing City Council legislation creating a Parent Advocate Advisory Committee to the ACS Commissioner

• Guest lecture at virtually every area school of law and social work, and develop training curricula for the public and voluntary sector child welfare workforce

• Have created and successfully delivered seven annual cycles of a peer-led Parent Leadership Curriculum. Over half of the Curriculum’s graduates have secured employment as Parent Advocates. Over 70% of those who had a child in foster care when they entered the Curriculum had reunited their family by the time they graduated six to eight months later.

• Helped instigate and inform a NYC Criminal Justice Coordinator’s Request for Proposals for interdisciplinary providers of legal services that seems destined to revolutionize the nature and quality of representation and due process available to low-income parents responding to child maltreatment allegations in Family Court.

• Write for and publish their own newsletter and magazine, and work actively with the media to challenge the racist stereotypes of ACS-involved families that depreciate service quality.

• Are working with the ACS Division of Research and Evaluation to create family interview instruments for use in performance evaluation of ACS Preventive Service and Foster Care contractors.

Within the same time period, NYC’s foster care population, and involuntary removals of children from their families declined by close to 50%. Referrals for preventive services increased by 25% between 1999 and 2003, and the leadership of ACS has made neighborhood based family support and preservation services central to ongoing system reform efforts. In a defining moment for CWOP, at our 10th anniversary celebration in June 2004, departing ACS Commissioner William Bell publicly announced: “this system has fundamentally changed over the last several years…because you have forced us to change.”

CWOP, with a staff and Board consisting largely of ACS-involved parents, has contributed significantly to this transformation through a wide range of evolving, constituent-driven activities and strategies including:

• Parent education and organizing

• Facilitating parent dialogue with child welfare policy-makers and parent participation in professional education

• Helping parents write for publication and work with the media

• Ongoing development of a peer-led parent leadership curriculum orienting clients to their rights and responsibilities within the child welfare system, and preparing them to serve as uniquely qualified policy analysts.

CWOP has offices in East Harlem, Highbridge, and Bedford Stuyvesant, and our programs have become subjects of study and replication on a national scale. The Main office is the East Harlem office located at 80 East 110th Street, 1E
New York, NY 10029 (212) 348 3000

The mission of Citizens Advice Bureeau (CAB) is to improve the economic and social well-being of individuals, families and communities who are most in need. Our intent is to enable individuals to uncover their potential and improve their lives. CAB does this through entitlement advocacy, homeless prevention, HIV/AIDS services, family rnrichment, Foster care prevention, and more.

Diversion Services Program

This Bridge Builders' program is run by the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB), and has been in effect since the start of the collaborative, in 2003. Two CAB staff members work closely with three schools in the collaborative (PS 11, PS 73, and PS 126) to identify families in need. The goal of this program is to prevent families from having an ACS investigation. After identifying those in need, this program then links the families up with services like housing, entitlements, legal assistance, domestic violence prevention, substance abuse treatment, mental health treatment, and parenting classes. By providing these services earlier rather than later, families can get what they need before ACS is called in.

In addition to this program, CAB runs another program called the Family Enrichment Program. The goal of the Family Enrichment Program is to prevent the placement of children into the foster care system. FEP provides support and resources that help to stabilize families and encourage positive parent-child relationships. FEP also works to help families develop strong support systems within their community. Referrals often come from Family Support Workers at the Bridge Builders/CPI storefront. The Services available to Families include: Case Management, Groups, Counseling, Recreational, and Childcare.

The mission of Good Shepherd Services is to lead in the development of innovative programs that ensure a more promising future for our program participants. To advocate zealously for principles necessary to empower those with whom we work. To provide quality service to individuals consistent with their dignity and to communities consistent with their needs.
Services include: foster care services, counseling and family support, early childhood services, in school and after school programs, collaborative schools/GED programs, and college support.

The mission of the Jewish Child Care Association (JCCA) is to meet the child welfare and mental health needs of all children and their families in the New York metropolitan area. At the same time, we are committed to providing services to Jewish children and their families in support of Jewish continuity. Our highly trained, dedicated staff works collaboratively with families to build on their strengths, preserve the family when possible, and help create new families when necessary, so that all children may thrive by having a sense of family, culture, and community. Key services include Foster Care Servies, adoption services

Living Mission is a group of Christian marriages with the commitment and calling from God for a ministry to marriages, families, leaders, and youth. Living Mission Ministries offers trainings, conferences, seminars, workshops, retreats for marriages, families, youth and leaders.

New Settlement Apartments is a not-for-profit housing & community service organization, located in an underserved area of the southwest Bronx, with a 15-year track record of active commitment to neighborhood revitalization and community development--including working toward excellence in community public schools. An integral part of the progressive housing philosophy embraced by New Settlement is that "housing is not just bricks and mortar." Our mission is not only to rebuild and maintain a sizeable portion of the housing stock in this impoverished neighborhood, but also to support the rebuilding of its social capital. Year-round community services and education programs are structured in direct response to the interests of neighborhood residents, who are low-income Blacks and Latinos, including many new immigrants. Programs serving over 2,800 youth and adults each year are staffed by paid professionals and dedicated volunteers.

As a privately funded demonstration project, the Partnership for Family Support and Justice works with the Child Welfare Fund to fund community based, preventive services to families in the South Bronx.

Public Elementary School
Grades: Pre-k through 6

Success Counseling Services, Inc. beleives that addiction to alcohol and other drugs is a disease and, as such, can be interrupted and arrested through effective treatment and excellent comprehensive support services. SCS provides outpatient substance abuse counceling.

The "Storefront" is a unique community space that is home to a number of programs and organizations. It is a Child Welfare Hub, a place where community members can get help and support for child welfare issues, as well as other issues like housing, public assistance, legal, domestic violence, substance abuse, mental health, anger management, parenting classes, and other services. It is home to Highbridge Community Life Ctr., CWOP, and the Family Support Program, as well as other programs and organizations related but not necessarily part of the Bridge Builders/CPI project, such as a Homeless Services program, and the United Parents of Highbridge.

The Women's Housing and Economic Development Corporation is dedicated to alleviating poverty by providing people with the tools and support they need to enter and succeed in the economic mainstream. WHEDCo provides: family day care, family support, a head start center, housing development, and youth education.