Crossroads' mission is to empower youth who are homeless, abandoned, abused, or at-risk to lead healthy, productive lives.
We are committed to creating an environment where all youth can grow, thrive, make choices, and become valued, contributing members of society.
history & purpose
Crossroads Programs was founded in 1978 through a collaboration of interfaith community leaders committed to providing shelter to runaway and homeless youth. They formed a volunteer Board of Directors and incorporated Crossroads as a private, non-profit organization. Over the years Crossroads’ expertise in sheltering youth has expanded to include clinical services for all types of at-risk youth.
philosophy & approach
Crossroads' goal is to promote the healthy development of youth who have very few of the resources needed to grow up in this world. We believe that all youth deserve a chance to discover and put to use their inherent strengths and talents in order to become successful, contributing adults someday. Our approach is to promote positive, healthy adolescent development by fostering responsibility, resiliency, and respect for self and others.
goals & objectives
Crossroads' individualized, strengths-based services for homeless, abused, and abandoned youth help them develop the interpersonal and concrete skills necessary for success in order to enter young adulthood as productive members of the community. Our expertise is in serving adolescents without families - a vulnerable and often overlooked population who have few other options in life and who will soon need to make it on their own. What we teach them now, through our relationships, role modeling, and other interactions, will impact the rest of their lives and will influence how they interact with the larger society. The Agency's programs center around four primary populations – Runaway and Homeless Youth, Teen Parents, Families, and Youth Transitioning from the child protection system to independent living – and offer participants the essential combination of promoting youth leadership and other developmental assets, educational and emotional mentoring or coaching, and life skills training.
