Our Counseling Program
Established to help address the emotional needs of children attending inner-city schools, the Counseling Program serves as an important resource that helps foster the healthy growth and development of each student. In 2008-09, CSF began collaborating with the Lynch School of Education at Boston College to integrate the Catholic school guidance program with the Boston Connects program.
Boston Connects is a nationally recognized school/community/university partnership linking Boston elementary schools in the Allston, Brighton, and Roxbury areas with community partners.  Boston Connects is working toward building systemic change within our schools and surrounding neighborhoods by connecting individual students and families with effective, in-school student support and well-developed community agency resources.
Preliminary research from the first seven years of Boston Connects has found that students in the program since Grade 1 have higher grades, test scores, and better classroom behavior than their peers who were not in the program.  In short, the beneficial impact of Boston Connects on achievement was larger than the harmful impact of poverty on achievement.
In 2008-09, 16 Catholic schools began using the Boston Connects model, 13 of which were funded by CSF.  3,752 students in 198 classes were evaluated through the program Of those students, 1,754 were found to be receiving an average of 1.7 services such as tutoring, mentoring, or enrichment activities.
Over 117 community partners were identified, including Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Catholic Charities, and the Museum of Fine Arts.  As the program expands and becomes more formalized, the list of partners is expected to grow.   
 For more information on the counseling program and how to support it, please contact the Catholic Schools Foundation at (617)778-5981.