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The Guidance Center, Inc. http://www.gcinc.org
The Guidance Center
Inc.
Main Office
5 Sacramento Street
Cambridge, MA 02138Map thisThe Guidance Center is the leading provider of innovative, family-centered programs for children. We provide a range of coordinated services to help children and families cope with emotional, social and behavioral difficulties. The services we offer to our clients can begin as early as during...
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Family After School Program: A Safe Place for KidsThe Family After School Program is an intensive therapeutic after school program designed for seriously emotionally disturbed children, ages six to 12. The primary goal of the Family After School Program is to prevent hospitalization and out-of-home placement for youth who require therapeutic services and who cannot be maintained in regular after school settings.
Through therapeutic group work, the program focuses on strengthening childrenâ??s social skills, decision-making abilities and emotional functioning. The Family After School Program's underlying philosophy is that, when viable, a child cannot be treated apart from his or her family, nor can the family be treated apart from the larger community. Parents are active participants in their childâ??s treatment at the Family After School Program and become empowered as they learn new skills that assist them in developing and enhancing their parenting and advocacy skills.
Meeting Place: Supervised Child Access ServiceMeeting Place serves at-risk children and their parents in conflict over child access following parental separation, removal of a child from his/her home or open adoption. The program offers a safe setting for visits between parent(s) and their child(ren). Trained Child Access Supervisors oversee these meetings, allowing parents and children to remain in contact without risk of physical or emotional harm. Our staff is experienced in working with high conflict families, including parents with a history of domestic violence.
Meeting Place trains adults from the community as Child Access Supervisors and is interested in recruiting supervisors who speak languages other than English, including Haitian Creole, Portuguese and Spanish.
Children With Voices: A Child Witness to Violence ProgramChildren With Voices: A Child Witness to Violence Program is a collaborative project between The Guidance Center, local battered woman shelters, such as RESPOND, Inc. and Transition House, and other local agencies.
The program focuses on enhancing and facilitating services for child witnesses of domestic violence and their caretakers. We seek to help improve the safety of children and families and increase awareness of domestic violence issues and their effects on child growth and development. Special emphasis is placed on parenting, stress management and womenâ??s health and mental health.
Children With Voices serves residents of Cambridge and Somerville, as well as those from other communities. The program works with children, birth through age 18, who have witnessed domestic violence and their non-offending (non-abusive) parents.
Please visit our website for a list of current groups.
Cambridge-Somerville Early InterventionC-SEI serves children from birth to age three who have or are at risk of having any of the following: developmental delays, emotional or behavioral difficulties, problems resulting from a difficult or premature birth, conditions such as Down syndrome or Cerebral Palsy, and environmental and/or social concerns (poverty, family violence, a parentâ??s mental illness) that pose a threat to a child's development.
C-SEIâ??s goal is to promote each child's optimal development through family-centered, therapeutic interventions. C-SEI is a certified program of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.
Please visit our website for referral information.
In-Kind Donations to help ChildrenThe Guidance Center is the leading provider of innovative, family-centered programs for children in Cambridge and Somerville, MA.
A great way for individuals and corporate and community groups to help The Guidance Center is to offer an in-kind donation. Items listed below will provide our children, teens and families with critical resources and support. The need for in-kind donations is on-going and much appreciated as many of the items are outside the budgetary constrains our program and clients face each day.
Our current wish list of in-kind items include:
Arts & crafts supplies
Food (e.g., snack time, BBQ)
New toys and educational games*
New clothing & shoes*
Gift cards or certificates
Toiletries
• Toilet paper
• Soap
• Shampoo & conditioner
• Toothbrushes & toothpaste
• Dish soap
• Laundry detergent
• Deodorant
• Tampons & pads
• Lotion
• Diapers
• Tissues
• Band-aids
Holiday gifts
Electronics and computer upgrades
Books
*Please know that we are only able to accept in-kind donations for unused items. The Guidance Center will gladly acknowledge your donation and provide you with a receipt for tax deduction purposes.
Partnership with the United WayThe United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley has strategically focused their funding to better address startling statistics about the well-being of low-income children and families in Massachusetts. As a result of The Guidance Center's innovative and well established work in the community, our agency is closely aligned with United Way's priorities. In recognition of this alignment, the partnership between United Way and The Guidance Center will grow even stronger over the next three years through increased funding for our innovative early childhood programs.
Thank you to the Mass. LegislatureThis summer we have some historic legislative victories to celebrate. Thanks to the vision and courage of our leaders in the House and Senate, and the leadership of the Governor who signed S. 2764 (formerly S. 65) into law last week, we will operate with state contracts that the Commonwealth must regularly review and adjust rates paid to Human Service providers. These rates have not been systematically adjusted in 21 years! A huge victory for us all in the Human Service field.
The Governor followed that action by giving his approval to legislation that extends coverage under the state's mental health parity law to substance use disorders, eating disorders, post-traumatic stress disorders and autism. Finally, another landmark bill An Act Relative to Early Education and Care (H.4706) formally establishes the Universal Pre-Kindergarten (UPK) Program in the Commonwealth, subject to appropriation. This bill will also enhance programs that the Department of Early Education and Care has b
Pioneer Investments Sponsors Art Project for KidsPioneer Investments and its corporate social responsibility program, Pioneer Helping Others, sponsored an art project day for The Guidance Center on Friday, July 18. Pioneer Investments hired Let's Gogh Art, a local mobile creative enrichment provider of art education, to come to The Guidance Center's Family After School Program and work with the children.
The fun-filled afternoon included painting and doing an arts and crafts project. All participating children enjoyed working with the Let's Gogh Art instructor who guided them on the best use of paint brushes and how to mix colors.
According to Maribeth Arena, program director of the Family After School Program, participating in arts activities can be very therapeutic for children with behavioral and emotional difficulties. Said Arena, \"We are grateful to Pioneer employees for giving this special gift to our kids. It's not often that you see a large corporation take on an initiative like this.\"
Mayor Simmons: Her Commitment to The Guidance CenterThe Guidance Center hosted Cambridge Mayor Denise Simmons as keynote speaker for the Staff Welcome Day held at Cambridge College.
Mayor Simmons spoke about the value of The Guidance Center to local families in need: â??The Guidance Center has been an important institution for over 50 years, addressing the developmental and mental health needs of children and families in the area through prevention, intervention and family support.â??
Simmons also spoke about her experience accessing Guidance Center services after her son was murdered in 2002. After his death, she became the sole care-giver to her 3 grandchildren and, in some difficult circumstances, relied on The Guidance Center for support for herself and her grandchildren. Simmons said about that time in her life, â??It really takes a village to raise a child, and maybe it took three villages to raise three grandchildren. Thankfully, I had my family, I had my friends, and I had resources like The Guidance Center to lean on.â??
