Our mission is to empower children and adults with developmental disabilities to achieve their potential based on personal choices, abilities and interests...
Westchester Arc
Herbert Katzenberg Center
121 Westmoreland Avenue
White Plains, NY 10606
(914) 949-9300
info@westchesterarc.org
24-hour
Crisis Intervention:
(914) 949-8200
Información
en Español
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About Us
Founded in 1949, Westchester Arc is the oldest and largest agency in Westchester County serving children and adults who have developmental disabilities and their families.
Over six hundred employees provide more than 1,600 individuals throughout the county with a broad range of innovative and effective programs and services designed to foster independence, productivity and participation in community life. Through a process called person-centered planning, Westchester Arc enables those it serves first to define their dreams, and then, with the help of family, friends and staff, to work towards realizing them.
Westchester Arc was founded by a small group of parents seeking companionship for their children with mental retardation. Since no community-based services existed at that time for such children, and since public schools were not required to teach them, they had little opportunity to make friends. But that was then, now is much better. Over the years the agency has grown and families have remained its lodestar. Westchester Arc’s bylaws require that at least fifty percent of its directors be relatives of a person with developmental disabilities.
Westchester Arc offers programs and services to people with developmental disabilities of all ages.
Services include:
- early intervention for infants, toddlers and their families
- a preschool program
- educational advocacy for children from 5-21 years
- youth groups for teens
- transition planning for students preparing to leave high school
- vocational training and job placement
- daily living skills classes for adults
- independent and group living in forty-two residences
- respite care for children and adults
- recreational activities including a sleep-away camp
- 24-hour crisis management
- individual and group psychological counseling
- self-advocacy training for adults
- bilingual (English-Spanish) outreach to unserved or underserved members of minority groups
- social work that fills gaps left by other services
- guardianship for adults whose families are no longer able to care for them
Westchester Arc is a chapter of NYSARC, Inc., and a United Way agency.
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