May 2021 -May is Mental Health Awareness Month and every year, the first full week is celebrated as Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week.  Schools in New York State are required to include mental health instruction in the K-12 health education curriculum. Mental health education aligns with existing health standards and focuses on three key areas: Self-Management, Relationships, and Resource Management. What occurs in schools, forms, and influences children for a lifetime. It is crucial we provide a safe and nurturing school climate and put children on a positive trajectory towards attendance, learning, and social skills development… What’s Great in our State 2021 – Children’s Mental Health

St. Dominic’s School is certified by the New York State Education Department to serve students with primary disabilities such as Emotionally Disturbed (ED), Multiple Disabilities (MD), Other Health Impairment (OHI) and autism and speech and language impairment.

Our school provides a therapeutic milieu that emphasizes safety, structure, and clarity of behavioral expectations. Our staff employs a pro-active approach to anticipate and plan for our student’s overall needs.

Listen to Mouhamed, one of our K-12 students, provide feedback about the impact St. Dominic’s School has had on him and his peers as he talks with Ms. Heather Cahill, Principal – St. Dominic’s School (Center), and Dr. Diane Aquino, President/CEO – Saint Dominic’s Family Services (Right)

March 2021 – Exciting news! We are pleased to announce our partnership with Hearts to Homes.  Hearts to Home is a nonprofit Agency whose mission is to assist newly independent young adults who have just aged out of foster care. They help to alleviate some of the stress during the initial transition by providing the essentials to furnish a new home. Over the past few weeks Hearts to Home has worked with us to provide furniture and other essential items to two of our foster children who have aged out. 

The reality is that many of these young adults leave foster care with few possessions and no family to help them make this transition. By helping to create a more comfortable living environment with support from good Samaritans like Hearts to Homes, we are able to positively impact the negative statistics of instability, homelessness, and multi-generational foster care that affect this demographic.

March 2021 – On March 16, 2021 close to 1000 leaders of New York City’s business and labor industry came together virtually to raise money for Saint Dominic’s Family Services. Mistress of ceremonies, Good Morning America’s Co-Host and Host of HGTV’s Flea Market Flip Lara Spencer, was joined by special guests Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Country Singer/Songwriter Caroline Jones and more. Featured guest speaker, Robert Lapidus, CIO of L&L Holdings, discussed the current state of the New York real estate market, as well as the overall market outlook for 2022. The entire virtual program, along with a complete list of corporate sponsors and individual donors can be seen here www.fsdvirtualgala.org. 

“The continued commitment of the business and labor industry has truly been remarkable, especially as our communities continue to struggle through the COVID-19 pandemic,” says Brian Finneran, President of the Friends of Saint Dominic’s.  

“With the generous support of the Friends of Saint Dominic’s, we are able to keep children safe from abuse and neglect, as well as enable children and adults with mental health and developmental challenges to live fulfilling, independent lives,” says Dr. Diane Aquino, President & CEO of Family Services of Saint Dominic’s.

“I am so proud of how our industry came together to support this cause in such a big way, despite the challenges of fundraising in a virtual environment,” says Eugene Peter White, dinner chairman of the Friends of Saint Dominic’s and Executive Vice President of Structure Tone. “It’s incredible that we were able to raise over $1 million yet again to help Saint Dominic’s and its mission.”

2021 would have been the 40^th anniversary for the business and labor dinner typically held at the New York Hilton.  Since its inception, the dinner has raised over $26 million for Family Services of Saint Dominic’s. 

January 2021 – Saint Dominic’s Family Services (SDFS) was recently awarded a conditional contract for the Empire State Supportive Housing Initiative (ESSHI). The conditional award is intended to provide services and operating funding in support of 40 permanent supportive housing units. SDFS will renovate/purchase residential property in Rockland County for forty low-income clients and forty ESSHI clients. The ESSHI population will consist of 25 homeless/at risk clients with Serious Mental Illness (SMI) and 15 Homeless youth ages 18-24.

SDFS has provided permanent Supportive Housing for SMI in Rockland County NY since 1994. The Agency is one of two Rockland based Agencies to be awarded and currently has 50 scattered supported housing beds.

“New York State is a national leader in the development and ongoing support of housing for families and individuals living with mental illness and other special needs.  Supportive housing has been shown to provide stability, safety and the opportunity for individuals and families to live in their own homes and communities as they make their way on the road to recovery”. (Governor Andrew Coumo, 2021, News section, para. 7)