The Village for Families and Children offers a comprehensive array of services for children and families. If you do not see a program that matches your needs, or if you would like more information about any of those listed below, please call 860.236.4511.

Adoption

The Village Adoption Program recruits and approves families for children with special needs whose permanency plan is adoption.  The program also serves biological parents who need help with planning for themselves and their children.  The program reflects the belief that it is the right of each child to be wanted, loved and to grow up in a safe and nurturing family.  Children are placed primarily through DCF.  Families interested in adoption may attend Village information sessions on the second Thursday of each month. Click here for a schedule of meetings or call 860.236.4511.

Post Adoption Assistance Program

The Post Adoption Assistance Program was designed to assist adoptive families with a broad range of concerns and issues.  The Village’s Post Adoption Case Manager specifically serves families in the Greater Waterbury area who have adopted children through DCF.

Adoption Search Services

Upon request, the Village will provide information to adult adoptees and birth parents.  Adoptees age 18 or older can request non-identifying background and medical information or identifying information regarding their birth family.  Birth parents can request identifying information about an adult adoptee.  Consent is required for releasing identifying information.  The Village also maintains an Adoption Reunion Registry according to Connecticut General Statutes, Sec. 45-68A-45-68p, where adult adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents can register.

Eagle House Sub-Acute Residential Treatment Program

Eagle House provides residential behavioral health treatment for children aged 12 and under who are transitioning from psychiatric hospitalization.  Serving as a “step down,” Eagle House helps children prepare for family and community-based treatment or therapeutic foster care.  Eagle House residents attend school on site and participate in therapeutic activities as well as clinical services.  With the support of Village staff, these children learn to soar like eagles.  This program is available through referral only.

Empowering People for Success

The Village’s Empowering People for Success program provides intensive case management to recipients of Temporary Family Assistance, helping them remove barriers to sustained employment and achieve self-sufficiency.  This program is available through DSS/DOL referral only.

Enhanced Care Clinic

The Village’s Enhanced Care Clinic provides high-quality treatment for children and families presenting with psychiatric, behavioral, and emotional challenges. Services are guaranteed within a maximum of two weeks, depending on severity of need. Treatment methods include traditional individual, family, or group treatment; play therapy; and art therapy. Parents of children in treatment may also receive supportive services, including Common Sense Parenting classes specially designed to help parents maintain their children’s therapeutic gains.

Extended Day Treatment (EDT) Programs

The Village Extended Day Treatment Programs provide after-school and summer clinical treatment services for children aged 5 to 15 who exhibit emotional and behavioral problems.  Children in EDT receive group treatment and therapeutic activities designed to improve behavior and increase social skills.  The program aims to help these children remain in the community and avoid the need for residential placement; in some cases, the program assists children returning from an out-of-home placement with successful reintegration into the community.  Because family involvement in therapy is essential to a child's treatment, the program requires active participation from parents.  Programs are located on the Village’s Albany Avenue campus in Hartford and at Community Child Guidance Clinic in Manchester.  This program is only available through DCF referral.

Family Economic Security Program

The Village's Family Economic Security Program works with low-income families, many of whom have significant debt or other financial challenges, to increase their personal assets, reduce debt, and improve financial health. Program services currently include free tax preparation through a Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program that emphasizes securing such benefits as the Earned Income Tax Credit, budget coaching and customized case management, Individual Development Accounts (IDAs), and financial literacy education. Specialized services for low-income seniors are also available through a funded initiative.

Fatherhood Initiative

The Fatherhood Initiative works with young inner-city fathers—an historically difficult-to-reach population—by providing case management services that focus on building parental skills, increasing parental involvement, improving educational and employment opportunities, and securing necessary community-based services. Young fathers are matched with male mentors who serve as guides and role models. Click here to view the program brochure.

Friends of the Family (FOF)

Friends of the Family is a comprehensive program for pregnant and parenting adolescents (age 21 and under) and their families, which includes case management, mental health services, home visiting, parenting skills training, and career development services. FOF helps young parents build upon their strengths, obtain needed resources, and ensure better lives for themselves and their children.

Foster Care - Therapeutic

The Foster Care Program places children aged 3 to 18 who are in need of special therapeutic care in family settings that provide stability and a sense of security. The program provides on-going training for parents, helping them through the process of becoming fully licensed to foster children. Foster parents are caregivers and teachers who help children manage their feelings, build positive relationships, and experience success. The job is rewarding and challenging and, throughout, the Village offers continuing support so that fostering becomes a positive experience for both parents and children.  Child placement is available through DCF referral only.  Families interested in providing therapeutic foster care may attend Village information sessions on the second Thursday of each month. Click here for a schedule of meetings or call 860.236.4511.

Imani House Therapeutic Group Home

Located in a residential neighborhood in Hartford, Imani House is a therapeutic group home for boys aged 8 to 12 with emotional and behavioral challenges.  This program allows the boys—many of whom have previously received hospital-based or residential treatment—to adjust to a smaller, community based therapeutic setting before going to their biological, foster or adoptive homes.  Named for the Swahili word for “faith,” Imani House helps its children develop faith in themselves and in others. This program is only available through DCF referral.

Institute for Successful Families

The Village’s Institute for Successful Families provides evidence-based parenting skills training, primarily through the Common Sense Parenting and People Empowering People curricula. The Institute is also serving as the backbone of the Village’s Integrated Early Childhood and Family Services model, which will provide young children and their families with mental health assessment and treatment services, case management, school-readiness programming, and parent training.

Intensive Family Preservation

Village IFP Workers provide intensive in-home, time-limited services to DCF-involved families whose children are at imminent risk of placement outside of the home.  The program’s primary goals are prevention of out-of-home placement by reducing the risk of further harm to children and improvement in family functioning.  Program staff and families work together to achieve these goals.  This program is available through DCF referral only. 

Intensive In-Home Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Services (IICAPS)

IICAPS is an intensive home-based treatment model for children and youth with severe emotional/psychiatric disturbances who are stepping down from institutional treatment, are at risk of hospitalization or residential treatment, or are unresponsive to clinic-based services. The Village provides IICAPS services in partnership with the Yale Child Study Center. This program is available through clinician referral.

Intensive Safety Planning

Village ISP Workers serve families in the Middletown and Waterbury areas whose children have been removed due to existing safety factors.  The program’s primary goals are preventing out-of-home placement by reducing the risk of further harm to children and improving family functioning.  Program staff provide intensive in-home services to each family for at least 14 hours per week, aiming for family reunification within 20-24 days.  This program is available through DCF referral only.

Juvenile Justice Intermediate Evaluation Services (JJIE)

The Village’s JJIE Center provides comprehensive mental health evaluations for youth involved with the juvenile court system. Program staff work with the youth and family to determine treatment needs, assess strengths and challenges, and develop treatment plans and goals. This program is available only through referrals from the juvenile court system.

Juvenile Review Board

In collaboration with the Hartford Office for Youth Services, the Juvenile Review Board (JRB) program works to divert juvenile offenders from the formal justice system. JRBs take a restorative justice approach, which balances the needs of the offender, the victim, and the community. JRBs provide offenders who take responsibility for their actions the opportunity to avoid Juvenile Court through a process during which they face the victim, their parent(s) or guardian, a group of volunteer community members, and law enforcement officials. JRBs focus on helping offenders to understand and acknowledge how their behavior harmed the victim and the community and to take responsibility to repair the harm, through either direct or indirect action. Additionally, JRBs provide support and assistance to help youths develop competencies that will enable them to effect necessary changes in their behavior to avoid re-offending in the future. JRBs are based in and tailored to the communities they serve. JRB is by referral of the Justice System only.

Life Long Family Ties (LLFT)

The Life Long Family Ties Program was developed as an innovative effort to secure permanent homes or permanent connections to significant, caring adults for DCF-committed children aged 5 to 12 after previous attempts to achieve permanency have failed.  The program focuses on establishing and maintaining connections with individuals who have played a significant part in the child’s life.  Village LLFT staff also work to develop a safe, happy and healthy environment in which the child can continue to grow and flourish into adulthood.  This program is available through DCF referrals only.

Multidimensional Family Therapy (MDFT)

MDFT is a family-focused, intensive in-home intervention for youth who abuse substances or have co-occurring substance abuse and mental health issues. An evidence-based program, MDFT has been nationally recognized as a model program for its effectiveness; the Village is also a statewide trainer for MDFT program staff. This program is available only through referral from the Hartford Youth Project, DCF, or the juvenile court system.

One-on-One Volunteer Mentoring Program

Village staff recruit and train volunteer mentors for Hartford youth aged 14 to 21 in out-of-home care.  Mentors help the youth prepare for life on their own, explore career options, and evaluate educational alternatives.  One-on-One Mentoring for youth is available through DCF referral only.

Psychological Evaluations Center

The Psychological Evaluations Center offers individualized psychological testing services for children ages 2 through 18. The Center uses the most advanced and culturally appropriate psychological tests available. Evaluations test for a wide range of diagnoses including anxiety disorders, depression, bipolar and mood disorders, developmental delays, neurocognitive deficits due to brain injury, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and many others. Following testing, a psychologist will discuss results and provide recommendations. Click  here  to see the program brochure. This program is available through clinician referral.

RAMBUH Family Center

The Rambuh Family Center serves parents of children aged 8 and under in the Upper Albany/Blue Hills neighborhood of Hartford through school readiness services, family literacy programs, parenting skills and parent advocacy training, and adult education programs. Rambuh is also a Nurturing Families Network program site, which provides home visiting and parent training to new parents identified as being at risk of child abuse or neglect.  Click HERE  to see our calendar of events. 

Reconnecting Families Program

Village staff provide intensive support services for Hartford-area families with children in DCF custody whose permanency goal is family reunification.  Service components include parenting education and skill building, parent-child relationship development, safety planning, and therapeutic visitation.  This program is available through DCF referral only.

Safe Home

The Village Safe Home is a short-term residential program for children aged 12 and under who have been removed from their homes for the first time, usually for reasons of abuse or neglect.  Safe Home staff work with the child, family, DCF staff, and other partners to develop a thoughtful permanency plan aimed at reducing the child’s trauma and avoiding future placements.  This program is available only through DCF referral.

Sankofa House Permanency Diagnostic Center

Sankofa House was named after an African mythical bird that symbolizes the need to look to the past to prepare for the future.  Children aged 12 and under are placed at Sankofa House after experiencing multiple out-of-home placements.  With the house’s namesake in mind, Village staff help the children understand and address the trauma of their past and develop an effective permanency plan for the future.  Staff work with biological and foster families, DCF, and other community partners to create a full assessment of the child and designate supportive services before, during and after placement.  This program is only available through DCF referral.

School-Based Programs

The Village has a wide variety of programs based in eight Hartford public schools.

• Our 21st Century Community Learning Centers focus on engaging youth through high-quality academic support services, leadership and character development programs, and enrichment/recreational activities. Open daily after school, these Village Centers give students a safe place to do homework, learn new hobbies, and meet good friends.
• After-School Initiatives provide high-quality academic, enrichment, and recreational programming as well as food distribution. Through research-based, high-interest curricula, after school initiatives give students the academic support they need, as well as ways to develop life skills, explore new interests, and contribute to their communities.
• Finally, Village Family Resource Centers provide school-based support services for parents and children. Service options currently include parent education and support programs, adult education programs, family literacy programs and after-school and summer Positive Youth Development (PYD) programs. Resource Center staff also facilitate linkages to community services to meet basic needs, such as food, clothes and housing. 

Therapeutic Mentoring

The Village offers therapeutic mentoring to children who need a consistent, caring relationship to support treatment goals and maintain or transition to community placements.  Village Therapeutic Mentors provide one-to-one services to a child for 6 to 8 hours per week at flexible hours for extended periods of time.  Mentors and children work together to achieve customized therapeutic goals, such as improved behavior, increased social skills, and decreased sibling conflict.  Mentors also provide support to caregivers, advocacy for the family, and linkages to community supports. This program is by referral or fee-for-service..

Truancy Court Prevention Program (TCPP)

The Truancy Court Prevention Program helps youth with truancy problems engage in school through intensive on-site case management, academic assessment and support, legal advocacy, and enrollment in after-school activities. The Village’s TCPP partners include the Capitol Region Education Council (CREC), the Center for Children’s Advocacy (CCA), the Connecticut Judicial Branch, and Hartford Public Schools. TCPP sites include Quirk Middle School and Bur School.