Mission

St. Ann's Center for Children, Youth and Families strengthens and supports families on their journey toward stability. Inspired by Catholic social teaching and Gospel values, St. Ann's Center provides a nurturing community where families heal from the past, overcome barriers, and take hold of their future.

What We Do

Originally founded in 1860 by the Daughters of Charity as Washington, D.C.'s first orphanage, St. Ann's Center for Children, Youth and Families has provided nurturance, healing and pathways to prosperity for some of the most vulnerable members of the Washington, DC community for 160 years. Our current programs and outreach activities include: supportive and transitional housing; child care; tutoring, GED assistance and ESL classes; employment services; life skills; nursing; clinical and social work services.

Families come to St. Ann's in crisis but the shelter and services they find help to stabilize, heal and prepare them for independent living. The young mothers and their children are housed in safe, comfortable, private rooms and receive full supportive services.

One of the key objectives in our supportive housing program is to assist the young moms, some of them teen mothers, in developing structured daily routines for their family to strengthen their effectiveness as parents and to develop healthy lifestyles. The intensity of services needed is individually assessed for each resident. Children may attend our licensed child care center which is also open to the community at large.

St. Ann's Center believes each individual has her own talents, interests, hopes and dreams and that she can use these strengths to build a successful future for herself and her children. At discharge, the young families are ready for independent living in the community with continued supports from St. Ann's.