In 1968, the Daughters became concerned about the lack of structured learning opportunities for pre-school aged children—infants to age six—who had been placed in residential care at Maryvale. In keeping with their proactive approach, the Daughters launched an in-house day care center to meet the needs of these children. The center maintained operations long after children 0-5 were no longer placed in residential care at Maryvale.
Almost immediately the Daughters recognized that high quality early childhood educational programs, like their in-house center, had the potential to prevent child abuse and neglect and strengthen families by creating better-informed and more knowledgeable parents with access to the resources they need to overcome challenges and create stable homes. The Daughters immediately opened the center to children from the broader community.
In 1999 Maryvale responded to community need by launching a second Early Education Center in Duarte.
After successfully operating its Early Education program in Duarte from its original facility for nearly a decade, Maryvale launched an extensive planning project to create a new state-of-the-art center—a center that would bring even more resources to area families.
During the planning process, and after more than 150 years of caring for children separated from their families for a variety of unfortunate reasons, the Daughters of Charity recognized that many families today need help and support with the stress of balancing work and family, coping with financial hardship and a host of other issues — ranging from substance abuse to the loss of loved ones. The Daughters understood that strengthening families was the key to keeping children safe and positioning them for academic and personal success, so a commitment was made to include a Family Resource Center as a key component of the new center.
Maryvale opened the doors of the new Family Resource & Early Education Center in Duarte in February 2011 to address the myriad issues that can compromise family well-being. The new location expanded the capacity of the Early Education Center dramatically— growing from a center where 5-6 staff served about 40 children daily to a center with 35 staff and a capacity to serve 148 children per day.
In addition to the expanded early education program, the center also provides comprehensive community-based prevention, intervention and treatment services for all families — including blended, kinship, adoptive, and foster families—and brings affordable and accessible mental health services to the under-insured and uninsured, as well as families and individuals with limited or no resources for such care.
In early 2014, responding to a critical need in Los Angeles County, Maryvale opened the St. Vincent de Paul Emergency Shelter program at its Rosemead campus for children 6-12 years old who had recently been removed from their homes due to abuse, neglect or abandonment, children in the midst of crisis or those transitioning between foster placements. The program provided short-term care in a specialized setting. Children received immediate medical attention and educational and social-emotional assessments that assisted Child Protective Services and the dependency court in making the best decisions possible for the child’s future care. The program was successful at the time; but has since been closed.
New state legislation (AB403), which came into effect on January 1, 2017, shifted the treatment model for children to family and community-based child and family services and redefined group homes as short-term residential therapeutic programs (STRTP). The goal of this legislation was intended to have children placed in family settings whenever appropriate. The STRTPs then were focused on youth requiring more structured and intensive settings. The STRTP staff worked with County staff to find safe and permanent placement for each child in their care. Maryvale received its license in February 2019, the same month that its Emergency Shelter Program closed, and provided residential treatment for girls 6 to 21.
After nearly four years working to develop and operate a quality STRTP to serve its community and local youth, Maryvale’s Residential Program closed as of August 5, 2020 due to a challenging therapeutic environment and poor outcomes. We have continued to provide Mental Health Services for children, youth and families.
During the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Maryvale remains open as we operate our Early Education and Community-Based programs.
As we move forward into the future of Maryvale and the communities we serve, our enduring mission remains the same: to heal, empower and educate children and families to instill hope for a more fulfilling future in an environment of dignity, love, and respect. Maryvale is dedicated to serving children and families according to our core values of Respect, Compassion, Advocacy, Integrity, Inventiveness, Excellence, Inclusivity, and Collaboration.
It’s an incredibly exciting time for Maryvale. In the spring, we partnered with the non-profit The Shower of Hope to provide temporary housing for female college students who are housing insecure. We hope to expand this meaningful program to enable more young women to achieve their educational and life dreams.
We also spent a year exploring ways to make a greater impact in the community by serving more people with a greater array of services. In June, our Board of Directors approved our new three-year strategic plan and the work associated with a refresh of our vision, mission, and values. We are eager to begin efforts to launch child and adolescent substance abuse and dual-diagnosis outpatient treatment services in 2022, short-term transitional housing to prioritized populations, explore the development of longer-term support services, and expand our early childhood education and mental health services footprint in the coming years. We envision becoming a vibrant community hub for these child and family services as well as parent, caregiver, and professional education, partnering with other organizations where it makes sense to provide a more comprehensive offering to the community.
The Daughters of Charity is an international community of Catholic women established in 1633 by St. Vincent de Paul, a humble French priest, and St. Louise de Marillac, a French widow, who envisioned the Daughters of Charity as a group of women dedicated to serving “the poorest of the poor.”
Nearly two centuries later, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton adapted the rule of the French Daughters of Charity for her community, giving rise to the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph, in Emmitsburg Maryland. In 1850, that community united with the international community, based in Paris.
Today, the Daughters of Charity is made up of more than 19,000 Catholic women who minister worldwide to the sick and the poor. The Daughters touch those in need through education, health care, social and pastoral services, always with an eye to the future.
The Daughters continuously re-evaluate and re-define their services based on the evolving needs of the poor, reaching out to victims of hunger, homelessness, war, substance abuse, and to broken families, refugees, at-risk youth and persons living with HIV/AIDS or other disease.
The mission of the Daughters of Charity is “to honor our Lord Jesus Christ as the source and model of all charity, serving Him corporally and spiritually in the person of the Poor.”
