Celebrating Seven Decades of Innovating with Individuals and Families
CFS’ 70th Anniversary is a special opportunity to celebrate the organization’s history, present, and future with those that make CFS a special organization – the CFS family of individuals, their families, staff, donors, board members, and business and community partners.
Throughout the year, we’ll have opportunities for everyone to come together and be reinvigorated by CFS’ mission to provide the support necessary to make the lives of those we work with fuller, more meaningful, and increasingly independent. This page will serve as a “hub,” which will be continually updated with the information you need to get involved.
CFS’ Founding and Guiding Principles: Collaboration and Person-Centered Pioneers
In the early 1950s, a Staten Island group of parents of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities came together to create an organization called “Parents with a Purpose.” Their goal was to effectively support their children in their homes and communities and keep them out of institutions. They were finding this increasingly difficult to do as their children with disabilities aged into adulthood and they worked to balance the demands of work and parenting their other children.
In 1954, they contacted the woman who would help them find the solution, Irene Lowy Arnold, and founded the organization that would eventually become The Center for Family Support. Irene was a uniquely powerful woman with vast experience helping children at risk. Early in her career, she worked with incarcerated children, before turning her attention to the resettlement of children orphaned by World War II, including relocating 300 children from Buchenwald concentration camp.
That same year, in 1954, they hired Irene to lead their new organization, which she directed until retiring in 1972. Irene was a well-connected woman, especially in the fields of arts, entertainment, and politics, which made her a powerful fundraiser. These connections helped her get funding to train and staff some of the very first support professionals, who provided relief and support to families and their children at a time when there was no public support available.
CFS was founded by parents and individuals looking for alternative forms of support and its first leader was a deeply committed innovator, who knew that the future of support was in the breaking up of large institutions like Willowbrook. This DNA – family and individual-driven; person-centered pioneers, innovators, and advocates; and an organization steeped in a culture of inclusive collaboration – has always been the cornerstone of CFS. Throughout CFS’ 70-year history, the organization has adapted to the needs of the community we serve, utilizing the newest available models of support, and collaborating with families, individuals, and government to innovate and ensure individuals are matched with the supports that will benefit them most.
Today, CFS espouses these founding principles in everything it does. Staff continue to prioritize connecting with and listening to individuals and families, and include them in committees and boards that establish organizational policies and the direction of the organization. That collaboration ensures we’re always at the forefront of person-centered models, and has pushed us to be leaders in self-direction, and in encouraging our participants to explore self-advocacy opportunities. This approach involving all stakeholders, including families, individuals, government, staff, and leadership, working together to make decisions has built the unique organization CFS is today. Decisions are always made with the individual and family supported by CFS as the most important factor.
We will be person-centered innovators for years into the future.
We are dedicated to keeping our individual and family focus while also embracing technology to ensure we are delivering the right supports to the right individuals at the right time.
We are committed to advocating for increased self-determination and individual agency for the individuals supported, while exploring more sustainable support models for aging parents.
So much about the future may be uncertain, but our commitment to our founding ideology which has guided us for 70 years remains steadfast.
70th Anniversary Celebration Calendar of Events – Download the Flyer >>
New Jersey Community Day
Save the Date – August 31. Van Saun County Park. 11am-4pm.
Come celebrate together with participants, families, and staff! Enjoy a day of food and fun outside. Be sure to sign up today.
CFS Foundation Awards Celebration
October 24th at 6:30pm. Museum of the City of New York
The Awards Celebration will be the culmination of the 70th Anniversary Celebration, held at the Museum of the City of New York. This new venue for our signature fundraising event will feature a new, refreshed format, including access to the Activist Exhibit, which has a dedicated space to the Disability Rights Movement in New York.
Early tickets and sponsorship packages are now available on the Awards Celebration Website.
