A Hill District advisory group of mothers, fathers, and grandparents communicated to Dr. Jerome Taylor an interest in preventing social, emotional, and cognitive problems in children under three years of age. Before the end of 1970, initial grant money had been located to launch the planning and implementation of what later was called Right Start.

Additional programs were developed to enhance the level of self-esteem in parents and improve the quality of relationships between caregivers, since these matters make an enormous difference in quality of parenting. We also designed and implemented Values for Life Child Care Centers to promote high levels of Love and Respect, Interpersonal Skills, Learning Orientation, Self-Esteem, Self-Confidence, Self-Persistence, and Self-Reliance in infants and children through five years of age.

We formed the Institute for the Black Family at the University of Pittsburgh which better accommodated the range of interventions we had developed and refined in helping families.

With the assistance of the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus, we designed two major local policy initiatives to enhance the development of neighborhoods.

We were funded for our First Steps Initiative, which was designed to prevent child abuse and neglect.

We moved from the University of Pittsburgh and formed a new entity under the name of the Center for Family Excellence, Inc. We continued our existing programs which help families transform their lives and the neighborhoods where they live.

An initiative funded by the Pittsburgh Foundation and the Allegheny County Department of Human Services Office of Children, Youth and Families, the Family Reunification Program works to expedite the reunification of children who were placed in foster care.

We were funded by the Richard King Mellon Foundation to infuse Values for Life Interventions through the Village at McKelvy Elementary School to promote academic achievement among students from kindergarten through fifth grade.

Our Male Coalition Program works with male youths and adults around issues such as anger management, daily life maintenance, family management, gang violence, job readiness, maleness, and manhood, parenting, sexual responsibility, substance abuse, and parenting. The Cultural Policy Council which was formed in the Hill District during the winter of 1999, works to strengthen families who are living under adverse circumstances by making Values for Life the norm throughout entire neighborhoods.

Certificate Training sessions in Values for Life Child Care were held with three organizations which serve young children. We expect that an increasing number of organizations will attend our training sessions in the future. The Center for Family Excellence was one of three statewide winners in the Violence-Free Youth Challenge competition. We moved to spacious new quarters in the AUBA building on Dinwiddie Street where we have consolidated all programs except our Values for Life Child Care center.

Over the next 20 years the Center for Family Excellence utilized our programs to further benefit our families across Allegheny County. We were able to offer monthly and annual Family Days, which provided field trips to the Pittsburgh Zoo and Aquarium, Family Resources’ Camp,Six Flags, Geauga Lake, Sandcastle and Kennywood.We held monthly Values for Life Parenting Groups and our Female Mentoring groups through our First Steps Program. Our Girl Talk group participated in the Search Institute’s Healthy Communities, Healthy Youth Conference which occurred in Minneapolis, MN one year had Houston,Texas another year. For years we were able to offer our youth and their families the opportunity to be involved in our Annual Cultural Awareness Tours. We traveled to such states as Ohio, New York, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Michigan, Philadelphia, PA, and Tennessee. The purpose was to expose our youth to historical landmarks, museums, churches, synagogues, libraries and environments that they might not have the opportunity or the resources to travel to. We currently provide services for our Right Start Program, Male Mentoring and Ladies of Value Mentoring Programs. Plus, we commissioned a new website from Darrensites.Pro.