Brooklyn Child and Family Services, Inc. has been a provider of community-based supportive services in the Fort-Greene and surrounding Brooklyn neighborhoods for over forty years.  Brooklyn Child and Family Services, Inc. (BCAFS - formerly Project Teen Aid Family Services, Inc.) was founded in 1963 by neighborhood women living in the Ingersoll public housing development in collaboration with the Visiting Nurse Services Association, the Willoughby Housing Settlement, and the New York City Community Development Agency. The genesis was to address a void in community services, particularly in regard to pregnant and parenting teens who, at the time, were not permitted to attend traditional junior and senior high-schools. The original mission was to provide support and the opportunity to pursue an education. To meet this objective, the founders provided services aimed at developing literacy skills, insuring adequate pre-natal care and fostering parenting skills. The organization was originally located in the Ingersoll housingdevelopment and eventually moved to Public School 67, where services were expanded to include a day care center and pregnancy prevention program. This comprehensive model helped the founders meet their final objective of encouraging the young mothers’ return to school, supporting the healthy development of young children and fostering self-sufficiency.

In 1981 our organization received a grant from the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation to provide teen pregnancy prevention services to vulnerable youth. The premise of this program was to prevent risk-taking behavior through the enhancement of self-esteem and academic enrichment. This program continues today, our Youth Services Program, funded by the Department of Youth and Community Development, as a partnership with the Department of Education offering after school programming including academic support, leadership development, cultural arts, community service learning, technology, family support services and summer day camp. The agency continued to expand programming for residents of Ingersoll, Whitman and Farragut housing developments to include services aimed at helping families gain financial independence, foster healthy lifestyles, and support early child development and school success. In 1989, the organization received a Department of Health and Human Services Research and Operations Grant through the Comprehensive Child Development Program to expand our programming. This later evolved into an Administration for Children and Families Head Start and Early Head Start grant which continues to fund our early child development and family support program, now known as Project CHANCE (Communities Helping to Advance and Nurture Childhood Education).

As homelessness became a persistent problem for vulnerable populations in the 1980s, the organization received a seed grant from the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation in 1989 to develop the concept of a transitional residence for young mothers and their children. With the assistance of the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation, we received a grant from the New York State Homeless Housing Assistance Program to obtain and renovate a building, The Rose F. Kennedy Family Center, in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Located in a four-story brownstone, the Center, now funded through the Department of Homeless Services, the Patrina Foundation, Catholic Charities, the Independence Community Foundation and the JPMorgan Chase Foundation, provides an intimate, homelike atmosphere where young mothers receive the necessary support to provide a stable environment for their children, obtain permanent housing and prevent a return to homelessness. We also added a community playground to the roof of the building that serves all of Brooklyn.

Addressing the ongoing need for affordable housing and the relatively short transition time allowed for homeless families moving into permanent homes, in 1998 the organization purchased, with financial support from the Department of Housing Preservation and Development and Neighborhood Housing Services, a second building in Bedford Stuyvesant, the Rosa Parks Apartments, to offer affordable, permanent housing for young, vulnerable families. These facilities provide a necessary bridge, along with supportive services, to fill the gap between transitional housing and independent living.