Mission: St. Mary's center for women and children, inc. Is dedicated to the emotional, educational, and economic health and well being through shelter, care, treatment, education and training of poor disadvantaged women and children.
Programs: St. Mary's home: a residential, independent-living program for homeless pregnant and/or parenting teens and their children. This program is a multi-service care model geared towards adequately preparing mother and child for living on their own by addressing behavioral and emotional health needs, supporting the development of parenting and independent living skills, and providing case management services that support educational, vocational, health, and childcare goals. Upwards of 85% of the residents were enrolled in education or training programs or were employed during their stay here. In total, st. Mary's home served approximately 30 parenting adolescents and 30 children (ages 0-5) since october 2016.
margaret's house: residential family shelter for homeless women and their children. Services include family and life advocacy services, housing, meals, case conference support services and access to public benefit programs. Served a total of 93 female-headed homeless families (unduplicated) and up to 82 children. 40 families received stabilization plans and services. 28 families transitioned from margaret's house to independent housing. The average length of stay in the shelter is 10 months. Up to 68% of the residents were academic or job skills programming.
bridge home: emergency residential program for children who have been removed from their families care due to protective concerns. Combines specialized diagnostic, behavioral and crisis stabilization services; access to social, educational and psychological services with family-like care in a residential setting. Bridge home served a total of 125 children. 10 sibling groups (2 of them experienced repeat admissions), 9 experienced repeat admissions, (28%) 35 children were reunified with a family member, 24 (19. 2%) children went to regular foster care, 15 (12%) children went to specialized foster care, 22 (17. 59%) went to long term group home/residential, 6 (4. 8%) children were hospitalized from the program, and 23 (18. 4%) children were hotline kids that spent 5 or less days in the program.
I have volunteered at several Diamonds of Dorchester and Dancing for Hope events in the past for this organization. Whilst I continue to believe in their mission statement I feel that this organization is heading into a downward spiral underneath lackluster leadership. Whilst it is still early days into the tenure of the new President my initial impression is that she lacks the basic people skills expected of a position where she is leading direct care service. It is sad that a figure head such as the previous president who personified compassion, had the ability to prioritize tasks and the time to nurture her staff has been replaced by someone who, at present, seems incapable of any of these qualities. I hope, for the sake of St. Mary's, that I am wrong but early signs are not good.
This agency both under-serves, profits from and exploits the women, children, families and employees who have the misfortune of coming into contact with them. The leadership is incompetent and detached from the employees and clients they allegedly serve. Excellence is not encouraged nor rewarded in this agency. Salaries are given on a random basis, pay is extremely low and unequal, morale is low, programs are failing....But no one has the courage to come in and see/ask us (employees) what is really going on. Hopefully the new president will be courageous enough to make the necessary changes to make it better, but it does not look promising. This should be voted Boston's Worst Place to Work! I've given them one start only because it was required to move forward with the review.
