Our Good Counsel staff guides each mother on developing good spending habits while learning to identify needs versus wants. As a goal, each mother is encouraged to save one-third of any income she earns. This helps her to budget for permanent housing in the future.
Additionally, trained staff and volunteers meet with every resident upon admission. They guide each mother through an assessment program that identifies her interests, abilities, and employment opportunities. Resume and job interview counseling, including proper dress code, provide our mothers with a greater chance for success.
Many of our mothers come from broken or dysfunctional homes. To account for this, they are taught many positive and practical aspects of parenting. From prenatal care to learning how to bathe a newborn, a great deal of emphasis is placed on empowering each woman to be the best mother for her child.
Each mom learns the different stages of her child’s growth, and she is taught how to recognize motor skills development. An emphasis on loving, caring discipline is also taught, so a mother may not repeat family patterns of abusive behavior.
Eating healthy is vital to the expectant mother before and after birth, since her body will go through many changes. The changing diets of newborns, toddlers, and pre-schoolers are addressed in our nutrition classes, and our mothers are shown how to prepare healthy meals by taking turns cooking for each other during dinner. Shopping economically is emphasized, and our mothers are encouraged to experiment and try different dishes.
Staff and volunteers regularly meet in groups and will offer practical Catholic teaching and guidance as a way to assist each resident in their spiritual journey. Each Good Counsel home has its own chapel. We invite our mothers to consider the sacraments, Scripture, prayer, retreats, and the external church community as a great way to find understanding, forgiveness, healing, and strength.
The virtue of chastity is also taught and promoted in each home as a healthy lifestyle. This will not only help each mother to focus on and be more devoted to her baby, but it will also help her to recognize and appreciate her personal dignity more.
Our Health and AIDS Education program helps expectant and new mothers to be more in tune with the many changes happening to their bodies and discover specific areas that may require more attention.
All health-care materials and information provided are life-affirming and do not attack the virtue of chastity. To support these principles, Good Counsel teaches that abstinence is the only true and healthy way to halt the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV-AIDS. Our comprehensive program points out the dangers of contraception, which wound participants physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Our Lumina program helps post-abortive women and men to find healing through confidential counseling and peer groups. Lumina (meaning light) helps a person through the dark after-effects of an abortion experience, which sometimes produce grief, depression, anxiety, and other challenges many years later.
Periodic retreats and days of recollection are offered throughout the year by Theresa Bonopartis, our Lumina Director. For more information, please click here.
Watch this short video to learn what it’s like in our homes.
Please feel free to contact us with any questions. You can also read these frequently asked questions from other moms.
Good Counsel is a safe haven that provides residential homes for pregnant women and children in need.
Any pregnant woman regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, or where she is from can be accepted.
Pregnant women are given priority, and women with a baby less than six weeks old will also be considered. Pregnant women with other children up to 5 years of age are welcome. But exceptions are sometimes made for older children.
Good Counsel provides Case Management services including assistance with employment, social services, medical, school, housing, etc. We offer life skills in spirituality, parenting, social skills, health and nutrition. There is no initial fee required. Once an income is obtained residents are encouraged to contribute.
Good Counsel offers long term placement 12 through 18 months in the program.
While there is no maximum age limit, we can best accommodate women 18 and older.
Good Counsel has four residential homes located in these areas: Bronx, NY (Bronx County); Staten Island, NY (Richmond County); Spring Valley, NY (Rockland County); and Riverside, NJ (Burlington County).
Every mom will have her own room. Good Counsel’s rooms are fully equipped with furniture including bed(s), crib(s), a dresser and nightstands. Items needed are your basic necessities such as clothing and personal hygiene products.
Yes! Good Counsel does not discriminate against any pregnant woman.
Yes! Any pregnant woman will be accepted. We have a home in Westchester County, NY specifically designed for women with a mental illness or substance abuse.