Our Mission Statement

The House of the Good Shepherd provides care that changes children's lives.

Our Vision Statement

The House of the Good Shepherd will be the leading provider of treatment, education, and support services to the children and families of the community that we serve. We will be known for providing services that are of the highest quality and value, delivered within the context of family, culture, and community.

Our Values

• Integrity is at the heart of everything we do. The people who work for HGS must be of good moral character and prepared to put others’ needs before their own every day, simply because it’s the right thing to do. Integrity also refers to our commitment to following best practices informed by research or having otherwise demonstrated their worthiness and value. We are therefore equally committed to discontinuing practices and programs that haven’t.
• Compassion is the feeling people have when they allow themselves to be moved by the suffering of others. We then experience the motivation to help alleviate and prevent the same from occurring again. At the heart of compassion lies our feelings, acceptance of others, and unconditional kindness. Compassion is required to successfully engage with peers, youth, parents, and the communities where we live and work.
• Insight is the capacity to gain an accurate and deep understanding of a person or thing. It requires that we first have a fundamental understanding of ourselves and then the people with whom we interact. It also requires that we allow new information to cause us to reexamine existing conventions and challenge the status quo- whatever those conventions might be. Being insightful ensures our relevance and continues our optimism as we proceed over time.
• Determination describes our efforts to provide a quality experience whenever we’re able. Our determination to succeed will require us to be a disciplined workforce. We work hard, challenge ourselves to make good decisions, remain focused, and relentlessly support the perseverance of others. We pursue challenges instead of avoiding them, and we are relentless about achieving the standards we’ve set for ourselves. We dare to continue when others have given up.
• Influence is a powerful element of our work and assists us in fulfilling our overarching mission. Every day, we influence the lives of the children and families to bring them to a better place, but we understand that we are a part of larger systems and communities despite our best efforts. We, therefore, invest our time and resources to influence policy-makers, funders, and the communities where we work. We have the humility to allow ourselves to be influenced by our learning. We allow facts, research, data, and understanding of social problems to provide the wisdom we need to guide our long-term vision.