Berkshire Center for Families and Children

CONTACT:

480 West Street
Pittsfield, MA 01201
413-448-8281 888-742-7443
www.berkshirechildren.org

Carolyn Mower Burns, Executive Director

DESCRIPTION:

Since 1878, when it was incorporated as the Union for Home Work, Berkshire Center for Families and Children has continually adapted to changing needs, offering broad assistance in early childhood education, parenting and family skill-building, for residents and employees in Berkshire County. In the early 1900s and under New Deal programs of the Great Depression, the agency's name and focus evolved mainly in response to problems attending urbanization. In the 1950s three agencies -- the Association for Family Services, the New England Home for Little Wanderers, and the Pittsfield Day Nursery -- merged to become a single agency, and in 1974 its name changed to its current form. Today its style is to collaborate with other agencies, and its strategy is to promote client self-help. It provides housing and comprehensive services to young mothers; practical skills training to clients referred by the Department of Social Services; parenting support and education, both at centers and in neighborhoods settings, and early childhood education, including school-age child care. Your help is needed because government contracts do not fund preventive programs, which the Center has found are most cost-effective.

(1999: HUMAN SERVICES: Children and Youth: General)