Ascension DePaul Services (formerly Daughters of Charity Services of San Antonio)

Daughters of Charity Services of San Antonio provides early childhood education to approximately 280 children annually from the ages of 6 weeks to 12 years, 7:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Monday-Friday at the DePaul Children’s Center, 3050 Golden Ave., and the DePaul-Wesley Children’s Center, 1418 Fitch St. Eighty percent of families in the program pay for child care on a sliding scale based on income and household size. The DePaul Center is accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, while the DePaul-Wesley Center is pending accreditation.

DCSSA is uniquely positioned to deal with the full range of issues faced by children in poverty, providing emotional and behavioral support along with a strong educational foundation. The program uses the Texas Early Education Model guidelines for skills development. Individualized plans for children are based on age-appropriate benchmarks, with special attention given to children affected by poverty, or developmental delays and other disabilities. Children also are provided with two hot meals daily, plus a snack. Parenting programs are provided, with parents encouraged to volunteer at the centers, train become community leaders and serve on the Parent Advisory Committee.

Eighty-five percent of early childhood education enrollees are developmentally on track, based on the Teaching Strategies Gold assessment. Our DePaul facility has been certified as a Texas Rising Star (the quality-based rating system of child care providers participating in the Texas Workforce Commission’s subsidized child care program) 4-star provider for more than 15 years, and this facility is the only nationally accredited, publicly accessible early education program south of downtown San Antonio offering sliding-scale fees.

Well-educated, professional teaching and childcare staff members pursue ongoing further education to advance their skills. While we cannot track individual progress of children after they leave our program for reasons of privacy, testimonials from teachers and parents provide strongly positive feedback on our attendees’ academic readiness and success. Challenges to the program include hardships faced by families living in poverty, including lack of resources for mental and physical health care, obstacles to quality education for at-risk children, lack of nutritional resources, social stigma, and cutbacks in and competition for government funding.

To sustain the program, DCSSA will seek donations from individuals and in-kind donations in addition to grants, in accordance with our annual development plan. While 15 percent of families now pay full fees for their children’s participation, DCSSA intends to engage a marketing firm in FY16/17 to create a plan and materials that will promote the program to more families able to pay full fees.