To take the best possible care of the people we serve and those who serve them.

• We serve abused and neglected children of all ages in the custody of child welfare and juvenile justice agencies in the states of Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia.
  
• We serve children and young adults who are placed with the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice, the Kentucky Department of Community Based Services, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, the Ohio Department of Youth Services, and the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources.
  
• We serve children and young adults as an alternative to being placed in secure detention.
  
• We serve troubled children and young adults many other agencies are not willing to accept.
  
• We serve older children and young adults, for whom the focus is teaching independent living skills to enable them to transition into becoming self-sufficient adults.
  
• We serve children and young adults in rural and urban settings as defined by their needs.
  
• We serve sibling groups by exhausting all measures to keep them together.
  
  
CORPORATE VALUES
At NECCO we share several basic beliefs that guide us in achieving our purpose.

1. We believe that those who work with children and young adults should be valued and provided with a fair, democratic, and open work environment.
2. We believe in life-long learning.
3. We believe that everyone's input is important and that individuality should be celebrated, valued, and appreciated.
4. We believe in a team-based approach to caring for children and young adults.
5. We are willing to try new things and keep what works. We believe in learning from our mistakes.
6. We believe that results are what matters.
   
   PROGRAM VALUES
   At NECCO, we share a common philosophy about children and young adults that guides us in achieving our purpose:
   
   1. First, we believe that troubled children and young adults should be re-educated in accordance with the twelve principles of Re-education set forth by Nicholas Hobbs in his book "The Troubled and Troubling Child."**
   
   
• Life is to be lived now, not in the past, and lived in the future only as a present challenge.
• Trust between a child and adult is essential, the foundation on which all other principles rest, the glue that holds teaching and learning together, the beginning point of re-education.
• Competence makes a difference; children and adolescents should be helped to be good at something, especially schoolwork.
• Time is an ally, working on the side of growth in a period of development when life has a tremendous forward thrust.
• Self-control can be taught and children and adolescents helped to manage their behavior. Symptoms can and should be controlled by direct address, not necessarily by an uncovering therapy.
• The cognitive competence of children and adolescents can be considerably enhanced; they can be taught generic skills in the management of their lives as well as strategies for coping with the complex array of demands placed on them by family, school, community, or job.
• Feelings should be nurtured, shared spontaneously, controlled when necessary, expressed when too long repressed, and explored with trusted others.
• The group is very important to young people; it can be a major source of instruction growing up.
• Ceremony and ritual give order, stability, and confidence to troubled children and adolescents.
• The body is the armature of the self, the physical self around which the psychological self is constructed.
• Communities are important for children and youth, but the uses and benefits of the community must be experienced to be learned.
• In growing up, a child should know some joy in each day and look forward to some joyous event, for the morrow.

2. Second, we believe in the five premises set forth by Nicholas Hobbs in his book "The Troubled and Troubling Child."

• Children are more healthy than ill and their problems are as much in their environments as in themselves.
• Children should be taught as opposed to merely being "treated."
• Focus on learning rather than fundamental personality change.
• Focus on the future rather than the past.
• Emphasize the child's total social system rather than just emphasizing his or her intrapsychic processes.

3. We believe in the importance of integrating children and young adults into their communities and giving them tools, particularly independent living skills, to help them be self-sufficient adults.
4. We believe that the children and young adults we serve have the capacity to become productive citizens.
5. We believe that decisions regarding families and children should be made by an experienced and educated team of individuals who understand these groups.
6. We believe that by continuously educating our staff and foster parents, we are giving them the tools to better care for children and young adults, and to meet their needs.
7. We believe in keeping the kids first and having fun!