SCO Family of Services is committed to ensuring that adolescents and young adults living in New York City and Long Island have a family to call their own. We work with young people to help them restore family connections and establish supportive new relationships with caring adults so that they can return to the most family-like setting possible. We support and encourage youth to help them rebuild their self-esteem so they can look forward to a brighter future.
New York City
Agency Operated Boarding Homes
SCO operates nine family homes in Brooklyn and Queens that offer 53 youth the opportunity to live in a smaller family-like setting where they learn important communication and life skills. We help them prepare for reunification with their families, placement in another permanent home or independent living.
Supervised Independent Living Apartments
This group living program helps 15 young adults at 6 Brooklyn and Queens locations make the transition from supervised care to independent living. We provide care through apartment living with 2-3 youths per apartment. We also offer a variety of services to help youth prepare for living on their own.
Extraordinary Needs Residences
Two AOBHs in Queens and 2 group residences in the Bronx and Staten Island provide 24-hour care in a structured, therapeutic environment for 45 youth with severe emotional and behavioral problems. We offer ongoing care and intensive independent living preparation through an array of services developed specifically for them.
GLBTQ Program
This group living program provides 24-hour care in a uniquely accepting and healing environment specifically designed to meet the needs of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth in the child welfare system. We operate three small family homes and six supervised apartments for 30 youth in Queens and Brooklyn that provide a safe, supportive and nurturing space for them as they strive for self-awareness and struggle for community, family and school acceptance.
Homeless Services for Youth
For More information please see Homeless Services.
After Care and Permanency Program
This program has been developed to provide young people leaving our community based residential programs and aging out of foster care with the support needed to ensure a smooth transition to family and independent living.
The Juvenile Justice Initiative
This model program, developed by the Multisystemic Therapy Institute of the University of South Carolina, works intensively with serious juvenile offenders and their families to change delinquent behavior. SCO operates two JJI programs in Queens and Brooklyn with the technical support of the MST Institute.
Bethany Program
The Bethany Program is a transitional living program that offers a secure home for 32 teenage mothers and their babies. Participants in the program live in 6 residences in Brooklyn and Queens with their babies as they finish school and learn life and job skills that will allow them to go out into the world and become self-sufficient women who can care for their children.
Department of Youth Development
The Department of Youth Development integrates services for young people participating in programs throughout the agency. Preparing Youth for Adulthood provides comprehensive, seamless services to foster youth from ages 14-21. Youth Development staff collaborate with case planning staff and the youth to advance the youth’s educational and personal development, work readiness skills and connections to caring adults.
Long Island
Madonna Heights
The goal of the adolescent programs administered through Madonna Heights is to prepare young women to function as independent and contributing adult women. Continual efforts are made to strengthen each girl’s ties with her family through regular family contact, home visits and individual, group and family counseling.
For adolescent girls who are having trouble living at home or attending school, the main campus of Madonna Heights offers two therapeutic residential programs and an on-campus school. Madonna Heights also maintains several community residences for adolescent girls who are in need of support.
For more information, please see Madonna Heights.