Ada S. McKinley Community Services, Inc. has provided infant and child welfare services to community residents since 1933. These services are designed to bring about a greater degree of social competence in young
children from low-income families.

The Head Start program operates out of six sites, providing comprehensive services to children six weeks to five years of age and their families. Specialized contracts allow Agency personnel to work with children who are developmentally disabled, health impaired, mentally ill and behaviorally disordered, and who require immediate intake and placement maintenance.

Staff continually recruits, trains and develops foster and adoptive homes.

A variety of programs are also available that focus on the children, their families and the communities of those who use foster care.

Among them are:

• Foster Home Recruitment
• Home Development
• Licensing of Foster Homes (Recommendations)
• Specialized Foster Care for Children with Behavioral and Emotional Problems
• Specialized Foster Care for Children with Developmental Delays
• Specialized Foster Care for Children with Medical Problems, Including HIV and In Vitro Exposure
• Foster Care for Children from Traditional Environment
• Foster Care for Children in the Homes of Relatives

Permanency Planning has always been a focus of the work at Ada S. McKinley. The Agency works aggressively and compassionately with parents of the children who have entered foster care. It is almost always the desire of children to return to their parents. Therefore, Ada S. McKinley works hard to help children heal from whatever caused them to enter foster care, and works equally hard to help parents learn, grow and change. We promote adoption so that all children can belong to families and so that people who want to have children in their lives get to belong to children too. Parenting and having a family is a two-way street that should be paved with a mutual desire to belong, Ada S. McKinley believes. A Subsidized Guardianship program enables children and their foster parents who have spent months and years together building a relationship remain together.