Options for Families and Youth

Options for Families and Youth (OFY) is a private, non-profit, 501(C)(3), social service agency licensed by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services since 1989. OFY initially began as a provider of specialized and emergency foster care services for the Cuyahoga County Department of Children and Family Services (CCDCFS) in 1990. Since that time OFY has served the needs of this population of children/adolescents who have been neglected; physically, sexually and emotionally abused; and deemed dependent by the Juvenile Court system. OFY has addressed the needs of over 3,000 children and adolescents who needed a temporary place to call home while attempts were made to reunify them with their biological families. Today OFY continues to provide specialized and emergency foster care services to between 50-60 children and adolescents in 50-60 licensed foster homes all located in Cuyahoga County. In 1997, OFY began to provide adoption services to foster parents for the Cuyahoga County system and for our own foster parents whose foster children became eligible for adoption. Over the years, we have finalized the adoptions of over 300 children with special needs. We have continued this to the present day through our contract with Cuyahoga County. In addition, OFY has completed home studies and post-placement reports for private domestic and international adoptions. We recently became a Private Child Placing Agency that offers Domestic Infant Adoption services to birthparents and prospective adoptive families. OFY also received Hague Accreditation from the Council on Accreditation (COA) in November 2013 and is a provider of International Adoption Services. From 1995 until June of 2013, OFY provided service coordination and home visitation in Cuyahoga County through contracts with Invest In Children and Help Me Grow. OFY has been an industry leader in the area of early intervention services in Cuyahoga County serving over 17,000 children since our initial contracts. We continue to have a great reputation of offering parent education, child assessment, support and linkages to community services to needy children and their families in Cuyahoga County. OFY has a Behavioral Health Services unit that has been growing steadily since 2007 when we first received our national accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF). Our clinical team now consists of a licensed psychologist and five licensed therapists that exclusively serve the Medicaid population of Cuyahoga County. While OFY is not as large as some organizations or hasn’t been around as long as others, our commitment to offering quality services to the children and families of Cuyahoga County is as strong as ever.