Charity Spotlight: The Society for the Protection & Care of Children
Listen To Your Mother, Rochester is honored to be raising money for The Society for the Protection and Care of Children. Below, the fine staff at SPCC has provided more about what they do, and how YOU can help!
143 years ago there were no laws to protect children and child abuse was widely ignored. In fact, there were laws to protect animals before anyone thought children needed to be kept safe as well. Eventually, one little girl from New York City, Mary Ellen, captured the heart of concerned neighbors when they became aware that she was being was being horribly abused. These neighbors joined together and enlisted the help of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, arguing that children should be entitled to the same protections as animals. Eventually the courts agreed. Mary Ellen was rescued and she came to live in Rochester where she lived out a long, safe and happy life. Rochester’s SPCC was formed to ensure her safety thus becoming the first non-profit agency in the nation focused on child abuse prevention. From that point on, Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children began to emerge across the nation and internationally.
Today, many of the 7,000 children and families that SPCC serves have endured unthinkable trauma, violence, poverty and loss. We believe that protecting children and supporting families in times of need is the greatest challenge and honor. We are able to help these children and their families heal by partnering with others who care about children and are willing to give of themselves to make children’s lives safer and happier. The LTYM Rochester community has become one of our most valued partners and we thank you for joining us in this incredibly important work.
For those of you who have never heard of SPCC, or as a reminder to those of you who have, we want to share some information to help you feel connected to this important work.
SPCC’s Mission
SPCC’s mission is to respectfully partner with families as we advocate for the health, safety and protection of children, work to heal and strengthen relationships within the family, and seek to empower parents to support their children
SPCC Services
All of SPCC’s programs are designed to help children and families overcome tragedies and challenges so they can realize their potential, develop hope for their future, achieve their goals, and in turn support their children to do the same. SPCC offers programs that provide therapy, case management, parenting education and support, visitation, and basic needs.
Teen-Age Parent Support Services (TAPSS) offers intensive individual and group support for at-risk pregnant and parenting teens, age 21 and under. Home Visitors address areas such as health, parenting, relationships, housing, employment, education and concrete needs to improve family functioning and child well-being. Weekly groups offer support, education, socialization, leadership development and parenting skills training. There is a strong focus on building self-sufficiency through education, finding and maintaining quality employment and work/career experiences with local businesses. TAPSS helps young parents with setting and achieving both short and long-term goals leading to a healthy and productive life for they and their children.
Family Trauma Intervention Program (FTIP) is a child focused, home-based program providing a wide array of services for children and families who have experienced trauma especially domestic violence, grief and loss. Individualized, home-based counseling helps address the child’s emotional needs, strengthen parent child relationships and assist parents in addressing issues of domestic violence, trauma and/or loss while also developing more effective parenting skills. Services include: Counseling, Child-Parent Psychotherapy, Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Creative Arts Therapies, Case Management and PAT.
The Supervised Visitation Program (SVP) – Families are offered safe and supportive visits or exchanges in a warm, homelike environment, which balances the need for safety and security with the need for quality time between non-custodial parents and their children. This program provides services to improve parenting skills and relationships through parenting education, coaching and role modeling. A component funded by the federal Office on Violence Against Women specifically serves families who have experienced domestic violence.
The Therapeutic Visitation Program works with families from a child-centered and strengths based perspective. This program provides individualized therapeutic services for families in need of a higher level of support to experience healthy familial visitation, such as families in which insecure parent-child attachment, high conflict divorce or custody proceedings, and histories of trauma may exist. Master’s level clinicians, with specialized training, partner with families, professionals and systems to strengthen parent-child relationships and prioritize children’s emotional well-being.
Finger Lakes WIC Program operates out of SPCC’s satellite offices in Wayne and Ontario Counties to provide nutrition education and counseling to eligible families in Eastern Monroe, Wayne, Yates, Seneca and Ontario Counties through funds provided by the New York State Health Department. SPCC’s Finger Lakes WIC program serves 5,000 women, infants and children each month.
The WIC Vendor Management Agency (VMA) serves as an adjunct to the WIC Program. VMA ensures an adequate number of vendors are authorized for participant access to obtain prescribed WIC foods. VMA provides oversight to 400 stores in 17 counties of Western New York.
Healthy Families, the newest addition to SPCC, is a home visiting program that will soon begin to serve expectant and new parents. The goals of the program are to promote positive parenting skills, strengthen parent-child attachment and interaction, prevent child maltreatment and support family self-sufficiency. The program will also focus on improving children’s health outcomes such as promoting optimal prenatal care, child health and development
How SPCC supports women and children such as those represented in LTYM
Whether supporting a young mother in learning how to nurture her infant’s development while providing a safe a stable home or helping young children cope with the tragic death of their sibling and parents, SPCC provides individualized therapeutic and concrete supports to help them reach their goals. Services are designed to ensure that parent-child relationships are strengthened and that children’s needs are met. Each family and child is unique, as you will see illustrated in the LTYM show, so the exact services vary but at the core of all services is a deep belief in their potential and a focus on developing strong parent-child attachments.
As SPCC has been a part of LTYM over the past few years we have witnessed such incredibly beautiful stories about the struggles and joys of parenting and the distinctively wonderful connection between mothers and their children. The stories also remind us of our strength and ability to overcome. Together we can help families overcome the traumas that they and their children have endured and feel proud knowing that we played an important part in creating a safe, supportive and nurturing community for children.
The connection between LTYM and SPCC’s beliefs
We both understand that parents want to be the best parents they can be but its not always easy and sometimes tremendous hardships get in the way of a person’s ability to parent. We both want to recognize this reality and do our part to help honor and support parents and nurture their relationships with their children to ensure all children grow up safe, secure and loved.
What each of us can do
Child abuse is 100% preventable and we hope you will join us in this effort. Whenever you see a child or family who is struggling – get involved, offer compassion and care for the child and entire family, help connect them to SPCC or other services that can support them through their journey. Your contributions to SPCC will help support and expand the services offered to vulnerable children and families and you can be a part of the most important work being done in our community – keeping children safe and protected.
