April Edition 2010 - New York Nonprofit Press

10 New York Nonprofit Press www.nynp.biz April 2010
AGENCY OF THE MONTH
Brooklyn Bureau of Community Service
Building Stronger and Healthier Borough for 144 Years
Brooklyn Bureau of Community Service
has been a critical part of that borough’s social
safety net for more than 140 years. And,
while it is well known and highly regarded
among professionals in the human services
community, BBCS has maintained a relatively
low profile among the broader population
of Brooklynites. Alan Goodman, who
took over as Executive Director a little more
than two years ago, has been working to
change that. He wants to ensure that BBCS’
broad range of high quality services becomes
widely known – both to those individuals and
families whom it can help and those potential
donors, volunteers and supporters whose help
it needs.
Center For The Study
Of Social Administration
Announces
A New Workshop:
Consulting With Non Profits:
Using Social Work
Skills To Develop
A New Income Stream
Starts Thurs., April 22, 2010
6 sessions
-------------------------
The Center also offers
Courses & Certificates in
Administration & Supervision
---------------------------------------------------
For Information
CALL (212) 452-7045/6
Or visit our website at
www.hunter.cuny.edu/socwork
(Click on Post Graduate
Program in Administration)
CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF
SOCIAL ADMINISTRATION
AT
HUNTER COLLEGE SCHOOL
OF SOCIAL WORK
With a budget of almost $30 million,
500 staff and 16 program locations, BBCS
now serves approximately 12,000 people
every year. The agency’s programs fall into
three major categories: helping children
reach their full potential, strengthening
families, and assisting adults with disabilities
or other challenges to live successful
and independent lives.
Helping Children
BBCS’ services for low income, at-risk
children and their families begin with a variety
of early childhood programs for approximately
400 youngsters that include an
ACS-funded child care center, Head Start,
Early Head Start and a family-based child
care network.
“I think what makes our agency stand
out is our focus on a literacy rich curriculum,”
says Douglas C. Brooks, LCSW-R, Director
of Family and Children’s Services. “We utilize
the Creative Curriculum, which is a nationally
known, evidence-based curriculum
that can measure children’s development.
Our data shows conclusively that children
involved with our agency’s early childhood
programs are well prepared when they reach
kindergarten or first grade.”
Like many early childhood program providers,
BBCS is facing significant challenges
as a result of funding cuts by the New York
City Administration for Children’s Services.
Its Duffield Children’s Center, which serves
90 children under a contract with ACS, has
been targeted for closure – not due to any
concerns regarding quality or enrollment, but
because the City’s own direct lease with the
building landlord is viewed as too expensive.
Goodman sees the City’s plan to close
the center as extremely unfortunate, given
the facility’s convenient location for low income
parents working in downtown Brooklyn,
its solid enrollment and its high quality
design features. “Duffield is fully utilized at
this time,” he says. “The building is a beautiful
site that is perfect for the needs of a day
care center. You just walk in and you feel the
positive energy.”
Located near Flatbush Avenue and the
DeKalb Avenue subway station, Duffield offers
easy childcare access for parents. “Over
95 percent of our parents are either working
or in school,” says Brooks. “It is really helpful
for parents who need to drop off their
children on the way to work. They can leave
them with us as early as 7:30 and pick them
up as late as 7:00. There aren’t too many
other programs that can offer that.”
In addition to the ACS program, Duffield
also houses BBCS’ Head Start program
which accommodates a total of 47 children.
“We would have to relocate the Head Start
program,” says Brooks. “We don’t want
the City to turn down a half million dollars
in Federal funding.” Duffield also serves
40 school age children with funding from
vouchers or parent fees.
At the same time, BBCS is also looking
forward to exciting new program opportunities.
Within the next few months, it will be
opening a new Early Head Start program located
in a specially-designed child care facility
at 1825 Atlantic Avenue. The space was
created as part of an affordable housing project
by Dunn Development. “It is all state of
the art,” says Brooks. “We are definitely excited
and funders are really excited. Usually
when you apply for new programs you have
to scrounge around to find space.”
The Early Head Start program will serve
24 families with children aged zero to three
in center-based services and an additional
48 families at their homes. BBCS is looking
for additional programming to serve children
ages three, four and five. The facility
as a whole will have a capacity to serve 48
children.
In addition to its center-based programs,
BBCS operates a family-based child care network.
More than 40 independent providers
care for 200 children in their own homes, with
training, supervision and administrative support
from BBCS. This provides employment
for the providers as well as safe, high quality
daycare services for the working poor.
This range of early childhood programs
allows BBCS the flexibility to offer families
what they need and want, says Brooks: “If
they want their children placed in a smaller
setting, we have the family day care. If they
want a classroom-type setting, we have the
centers. But they are receiving the same quality
of service. We now have families that go
back with us for two or three generations.”
For older children, BBCS operates the
Gary Klinsky Children’s Centers which provide
after-school learning opportunities to
children from low-income families in some
of the City’s most challenged schools. “A lot
of afterschool programs are sports oriented.
This is an academic enrichment program,”
says Goodman. “From the testing we do,
there is a significant difference in achievement
between the kids in our programs and
those who do not attend.”
The programs operate every weekday
from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. and serve 850
children from kindergarten through middle
school in East New York and Crown Heights.
The programs are made possible by the financial
support of Wall Street private equity
investment fund manager Steven Klinsky.
“He wanted to do something to honor his late
brother,” says Goodman. “He and his circle
of friends and associates, provide the lion’s
share of what it takes to run these programs.”
They also receive support through NYC Department
of Youth and Community Development’s
Out of School Time (OST) program.
Strengthening Families
BBCS operates one of the larger ACSfunded
child abuse and neglect prevention
programs in New York City, serving a total of
close to 400 at-risk families at any given point
in time. The goal is to help avoid foster care
placement and keep children safely at home
with their parents.
“Pulling kids out and placing them in
foster care is not what is best for children or
families,” explains Goodman.
Alan Goodman
BBCS operates one general preventive
program for 250 families that is based in the
agency’s Bedford Stuyvesant Family Center.
At the East New York Family Center, the
agency has both a 90-slot general preventive
program and an enhanced program for thirty
families with adolescents. These are both severely
under-served communities with a high
incidences of families at risk.
“We are the only program that only hires
MSW level workers,” says Brooks. “We use
the Structural Family Therapy approach developed
by Salvador Minuchin to address
problems in the functioning and patterns of
relationships within the family. In fact, his
son Dan is a consultant with us.”
“Many of these families do not understand
what parenting is,” says Goodman.
“They have never been parented themselves.
They may have been abused and neglected as
children and there may have been alcohol or
drug abuse in the family. We go in and build
on the family’s strengths and help to create a
safe and nurturing environment.”
“We meet with the families once a week,”
says Brooks. “We observe their interactions
and give them direction and feedback on how
the family can be strengthened.”
The approach is not without its challenges.
“We look at the family as a whole,”
says Brooks. “Yet, we are doing preventive
child welfare work. It is a question of how
you blend these two disciplines. Often they
are similar but sometimes they can be at odds
with one another.”
The strong clinical skills required for
family therapy services drive BBCS’ MSWonly
staffing model. “You can do the same
type of work with bachelor-level staff but you
may not get the same quality results,” says
Brooks, noting that family members often
come to the program severely damaged by
combinations of alcohol and substance abuse,
mental health challenges and a lifetime of
poverty.
The workload is intensive and stressful.
With caseloads of 12 to 14, and multiple children
in many cases, social workers can be doing
75 to 100 home and collateral visits per
month.
Nevertheless, BBCS’s program is overwhelmingly
successful – 97-98% – in assisting
families to avoid foster care placements
and remain safely intact.
Homemaking Services -- the second
programmatic instrument in BBCS’ family
strengthening tool kit -- is significantly