Andrus' central goal to help families provide their children with the supports they need to be healthy, secure, and well prepared for life extends beyond the geographic limits of its campus. A growing number of our programs are the product of broad-based collaborations with local providers and residents, and offer services to families directly within the community.

Home Visiting and Community Support Services
Andrus provides an array of programs and services for Yonkers and Mt. Vernon families directly within their own households and neighborhood organizations. More than 300 families benefit from these home- and community-based efforts each year. In our flagship Westchester County Healthy Families Program, we send trained Parent Educators into the homes of new mothers in vulnerable situations, to support and coach them through the early years with their babies. In a host of related initiatives, we partner with public schools, child care programs, and supportive housing projects, helping families promote their children's healthy development, school readiness and literacy skills, at critical junctures in their lives.

Our services all seek to promote the inner strengths of families by building their capacities to handle stress, negotiate service systems, and provide developmentally appropriate stimulation and nurturing for their children. Many of our efforts are based on the national Parents as Teachers curriculum - an approach that honors the central role and innate abilities of parents. A number of our Parent Educators are local residents - reflecting our acknowledgement of the effectiveness of peer- and community-based support.

The Early Childhood Initiative
The Yonkers Early Childhood Initiative (ECI) was launched in the fall of 1998. ECI is a community collaborative made up of families, elected officials, nonprofit organizations, hospitals, schools, businesses and other interested parties. The Andrus Children's Center is the lead agency, and Andrus staff have coordinated the effort since its inception. ECI's rapid development and impressive accomplishments were made possible by three factors. The first is the Mayor's creation of the Healthy Yonkers Initiative (HYI) at virtually the same moment, so that the ECI became one of HYI's major working groups. Equally as important was the generous funding from the Surdna Foundation, and the community's positive attitude and general readiness to work together.

The ECI is deeply committed to actualizing its vision that young children in Yonkers will be born healthy and supported by their families and communities so that they maintain good health, enter school ready to learn, and achieve their developmental potential. ECI's goals include increasing community awareness about the importance of early childhood; fostering collaboration and planning in creating a stronger service system; building on community assets to strengthen neighborhoods and families; and improving access to quality child care and health care.

Important accomplishment for the ECI include creating an annual "Yonkers Family Day" to celebrate, recognize and support Yonkers families. Yonkers Family Day has received national recognition, and is being used as a model in other cities across the county. In 2000 ECI published the Yonkers Early Childhood Data Book 2000 - an award winning document assessing the needs and resources of our community, based on the input of hundreds of local participants. The second edition of the book was released in 2004. Click here to request a free copy of this invaluable research guide, information source and tool for all who are working to make Yonkers - or any other community - a great place in which to raise children.

Other accomplishments of the ECI include helping to bring multiple new grants into Yonkers for collaborative service projects; providing training for early childhood professionals; conducting outreach about health insurance for low income families; and influencing public policy on behalf of children and families.

Call, write or e-mail us for more information on our Community-Based programs, or to find out how you may be able to partner with Andrus in your own projects.

Andrus Community Services
30 South Broadway
Yonkers NY 10701
914.968.1663