|
Fred Finch Youth
Center Timeline
Serving Children
for Over a Century.
Serving
Children for Over a Century
Fred
Finch
Youth
Center was founded in 1891 by Captain Duncan Finch and his wife, Eunice. They
named the center after their only son, Fred, who had died of tuberculosis at a
young age. Fred
Finch
Youth Center started out as a Methodist
orphanage--and in the early 1900’s, as many as 220 children at a time lived on
our campus nestled in the lower Oakland hills. One of our most prominent early
residents was Pulitzer Prize- and Academy Award-winning writer
William Saroyan, who lived here with his siblings in the early 1900s and
later wrote about his experiences at Fred Finch.
We
remained an orphanage until the early 1950s, when we began to focus our mission
on adolescents who were considered “incorrigible” or delinquent and started
providing mental-health services for these young people and their families. In
the late 1960s, we saw the need for a sophisticated residential-treatment
facility for even-more-troubled youngsters. With a federal mental-health grant
and private fundraising, in the early 1970s we erected a non-public school with
three buildings, four new cottages with single rooms, and a
clinical/administration building. From the 1970s on, we have focused on serving
the youth that many other agencies don’t have the resources to help.
Today,
our Oakland campus offers a unique
residential program for youth dually diagnosed with both developmental
disabilities and emotional impairment. Elsewhere, we offer two more
dual-diagnosis residential programs (in Vacaville
and San Diego), and a host of
community-based programs. Among many other services, these programs support
young people in their homes and at their schools, provide therapy to youth and
their families in brief periods of crisis, and offer transitional and permanent
housing and support for older youth. We are especially concerned about the needs
of youth “aging out” of care.
Fred Finch’s programs and services provide
therapeutic environments that foster psychological growth. We facilitate safe
communities where a caring, skilled staff provides the support and understanding
young people need to counter the effects of abuse, condemnation, rejection, and
dysfunctional family life they may have encountered. We strive to reduce
self-destructive behaviors and to prepare each youth we serve for
self-sufficiency and independent living.
Fred Finch is licensed by the California
State Department of Social Services and is accredited by the California
Association of Services for Children. Our special-education program is certified
by the California State Department of Education. We recently received a renewal
of our prestigious three-year accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation
of Rehabilitation Facilities.
Fred Finch Youth Center Timeline
|
