History of Catholic Guardian Services
Catholic Guardian Services is a well-established, industry-recognized human services organization with a long history of safeguarding and empowering at-risk children and families through holistic, trauma-informed care. We have been Providing Help, Creating Hope, and Preserving Dignity for disadvantaged individuals in some of New York City’s highest-need communities since our founding.
Landmarks in Our Shared History
1908
1887: Five Misericordia Sisters are summoned by Archbishop Michael Corrigan to provide help for the growing number of unmarried pregnant women in New York City. With only $1 and the clothes on their backs, the Sisters arrive on Staten Island to care for these poor, young mothers and their children, and found a maternity shelter that later became Rosalie Hall Maternity Services.
1899: Catholic Home Bureau is founded by members of the St. Vincent de Paul Society as the first Catholic family foster care agency in the U.S. for the placement of children in homes, rather than institutions.
1904: Responding to economic depression, widespread illness, and disease, as well as an ever-growing immigrant population living in squalor, the Misericordia Sisters expand their charter beyond obstetrics to care for anyone seeking medical attention, and the New York Mothers' Home becomes Misericordia Hospital.
1908: At a time when no other after-care services were offered, Catholic Guardian Society is founded by Father Samuel Ludlow to offer casework services for the many abandoned and neglected children of immigrants, as well as, young children leaving institutional care and returning to city life.
1909: The Catholic Home Bureau Board of Directors attend the first White House Conference on Dependent Children initiated by President Theodore Roosevelt to marshal government support for the protection of the nation's children against institutionalization and neglect.
1913: Father Ludlow secures stable funding for CGS at the rate of $2.50 per year, per child receiving care, and Catholic Guardian Society is incorporated.
1923: Even as the United States prospers during the Roaring Twenties, over 6,000 children lacking homes and parental nurturing in New York City are placed under CGS' supervision, making the organization an important protector of the city's most vulnerable population.
1925: Catholic Home Bureau establishes its Maternity Services Program to assist women facing unplanned pregnancies, and begins working under the auspices of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York.
1930
1930s, 40s, & 50s: Continuous development of foster care and maternity services across all three organizations.
1958: Rosalie Hall moves with Misericordia Hospital to its new location in the Bronx. The new hospital, repurposed into a center for community outreach and medical teaching, brings innovative medical practices to the fastest growing Catholic community in New York.
1968: Catholic Home Bureau establishes specialized boarding homes for older youth.
1971-4: Catholic Guardian Society establishes its Adoption Department to provide permanent adoptive homes for children who could not return to their natural families, its Education and Guidance Department to meet the educational and vocational needs of the increasing population of foster children, and a Medical Department to supervise the health of its youth.
1978
1978: In light of the Willowbrook exposé, Catholic Guardian Society opens its first community residence for persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The initial program is located on West 43rd Street in Manhattan and becomes the first of thirty-six residential sites in a far-reaching network spanning Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island, Queens, and eastern Suffolk County.
1980: At the request of NY State, Catholic Guardian Society begins the development of more residential programs in the eastern section of Suffolk County, Long Island.
1984: Catholic Home Bureau adapts to changes in the working behavior of families by implementing a family day care program in the Highbridge section of the Bronx, offering quality, low cost care to 275 children with working mothers.
1985-88: Catholic Home Bureau begins to serve the growing homeless population of New York with the St. James residence for 19 homeless pregnant women at 47 Madison Street. In the following years, a second and a third home, the Mitty Residence and St. Elizabeth Seton Residence, are opened.
1989: When the AIDS crisis hits New York, Catholic Home Bureau responds by opening Incarnation Children's Center in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan as a transitional residence for HIV-infected babies and young children. CGS pioneers the creation of a specialized family foster care program to care for children with HIV and AIDS.
1998: Catholic Home Bureau establishes its therapeutic foster family program to care for emotionally disturbed children in care.
2000: Catholic Guardian Society creates its first child abuse and neglect prevention programs to serve at-risk families in the Bronx.
2002: Catholic Guardian Society creates specialized residential treatment services to serve foster care youth with mental illness and complex behavioral issues.
2006: Catholic Guardian Society merges with Catholic Home Bureau to become Catholic Guardian Society and Home Bureau (CGSHB).
2008: CGSHB is accredited for international adoption services by the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs.
2009: CGSHB develops its innovative Youth Employment Services (YES) program, immersing foster children in professional work experience and preparing them for the challenges of adulthood.
2011: CGSHB and Rosalie Hall integrate services for pregnant and parenting adolescents and women in need and offer an expanded array of services.
2013: 125 years after its founding, Rosalie Hall, Inc. permanently merges into Catholic Guardian Services, creating the Rosalie Hail Maternity Services Division, which soon became CGS’ Parenting Resource Center.
2013: Catholic Guardian Society and Home Bureau changes its name to Catholic Guardian Services (CGS) to convey its longstanding commitment to serving those with special needs. The agency adopts a new tagline: Providing Help, Creating Hope, Preserving Dignity.
2014: CGS develops federally-sponsored shelter and family care programs for unaccompanied immigrant children from Central American countries in dire situations seeking asylum and family reunification.
2016: CGS develops its Children’s Health Home Care Management Program to deliver comprehensive, wrap-around care management for poor, underserved children and families with chronic health conditions.
2017: CGS develops residential care services for young adults with developmental disabilities on the Autism spectrum.
2018: CGS opens its new Family Center in the Bronx, providing trauma-focused mental and behavioral health treatment for underserved children and families.
2020: CGS becomes the first foster care agency in N.Y.C. to facilitate the placement of a baby boy who had tested positive for COVID-19.