Announcements 2006
Administration for Children's Services Honors our Foster Boarding Home and Residential Staff
By evidence both anecdotal and hard, Good Shepherd Services was voted the top foster and congregate care agency in the city in competency and timeliness for family court permanency hearings by the legal division of the New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS).
Nationwide, efforts are being made to streamline the permanency process, which are the legal proceedings by which it is determined what the permanent arrangements will be for children in foster care. ACS’s Legal Services department has included agencies like ours in many of the focus groups and discussions stemming from these attempts to improve the process, and this year the department decided for the first time to include agencies in their annual ‘Permanency Advocate Award’ ceremony. To select an agency, ACS first interviewed their attorneys about which agency they felt did the best job preparing the documentation required for permanency hearings, and in filing this documentation in a timely fashion, so as not to subject the youth to administrative delays. Repeatedly, attorneys named Good Shepherd, and when the interviews were followed up with a review of the available data, the attorneys’ endorsement was confirmed.
ACS Commissioner John Mattingly presented the award to Executive Director Sr. Paulette LoMonaco at the ceremony, with praise for the long-term partnership between ACS and Good Shepherd Services and the shared commitment to permanency for the youth in our care. (12/06)
