About Us

The Children's Services Council

    The thirteen member agencies of the New York State Council on Children and Families established a set of goals and objectives statements for children, youth and families in six major life areas: Economic Security, Physical and Emotional Health, Education, Citizenship, Families, and Communities.  To measure the results in these areas, the Council also adopted a set of core outcome measures or indicators that will help guide the State’s health, education and human services agencies in setting both interagency and single agencies agendas.   This common set of goals, objectives, and measures for improving outcomes for children and families is the New York State Touchstones.  The NYS Touchstones statements represent the expectations for the future status of children and families.

    Dutchess County Children Service’s Council adopted the NYS Touchstones framework to assist in their integrated county planning (ICP) process to focus local planning and decision making by providing more in depth data of the well being measures for county children, youth, and families.  County and sub-geographic information allows the web site user to compare local statistics and identify trends over time.   The CSC Touchstones encourages the community at large to support and expand the interrelationships among individuals, public/private organizations, and government to improve the well-being indicators through policy development, program and service planning, resource allocation, cross systems training and evaluation.  The Children Services Council hopes that this information on the web site will increase youth development opportunities locally and expand supports for county families.