Guest commentary: Youth Haven downsizing a bit, but it's not closing

Earlier this week the community was informed of a decision by Youth Haven's Board of Trustees to downsize our day care program effective Aug. 31.

Some took this to imply that the organization as a whole was closing. That is incorrect.

The day care program is one of many programs Youth Haven, in East Naples, offers to the community's abused children and at-risk families.

The day care program was started in 1988 to provide a structured early childhood curriculum to the children residing on campus in our emergency shelter. It eventually grew to provide child care services not only to the shelter children but also children from our surrounding community, both private pay and those receiving government subsidies.

Despite ongoing efforts to reduce costs, we continued to incur significant losses year after year in our day care program. We very carefully examined all available restructuring options, with each one leading to the same result, an extremely high deficit. We, as an organization, simply cannot continue to support the types of losses which we are currently incurring in that program if we are to continue to fulfill our primary mission of protecting abused children and strengthening families.

Youth Haven has been helping children and families continuously since 1972. Our 24-hour residential emergency shelter is the only one of its kind in Collier County, providing a safe haven for abused, abandoned and neglected children. It remains full each and every day with children who simply have no other place to call home.

In addition, our child abuse and substance abuse prevention programs are keeping families together and their most precious children out of the damaging foster care system.

No other organization provides this continuum of care.

The decision to downsize one of our programs, the day care center, does not impact in any way our continued provision of services. We will continue to provide unduplicated programs that keep children safe through emergency shelter services, education, advocacy, and in-home parenting programs.

We are excited about our plans of growth for the future in these areas and are looking forward to the community's continued support on behalf of abused children and at-risk families.

We are continuing to explore collaborations with outside providers who may wish to take over operating the day care center. As a matter of fact, on Thursday we met with representatives from Redlands Christian Migrant Association (RCMA), a highly reputable and quality child care provider with accredited centers in 20 Florida counties, to discuss the possibility of their taking over the child care program on our campus.

These talks are progressing positively and may result in an exciting collaboration for both Youth Haven and RCMA.

Again, we are very excited about what the future holds for us.