Julie’s is a community-based family support and education program that is committed to the development of strong, healthy family functioning.
Julie’s breaks the cycle of poverty among low-income, at-risk families by providing services that enable mothers and their children to become healthy, responsible, successful at life, and economically self-sufficient members of their communities.
Julie’s History
The Sisters of Notre Dame (SND) have a 200-year history of working in Boston. Julie’s Family Learning Program (Julie’s) was established in 1974 by the Sisters of Notre Dame in response to their experiences in Boston with large numbers of low-income families, mostly female-headed, living with the pervasive effects of poverty. The program is named after the Foundress of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, St. Julie Billiart, whose mission included work with impoverished women and children in the 18th century.
Julie’s services in Boston began with two independent organizations coming together: Julie’s Children’s House, started by Jean Sullivan, SND, and the Adult Learning Program, started by Louise Kearns, SND. Julie’s Children’s House served low-income, preschool children and their parents who lived in South Boston’s D Street Public Housing Project; and the Adult Learning Program was an adult education and support program that targeted high-risk, low-income, female heads-of-households. In 1980, Julie’s Children’s House and the Adult Learning Program joined together and became Julie’s Family Learning Program.
Over the years, Julie’s has developed deep roots in the community, providing a comprehensive and holistic program for impoverished families. In the late 1990’s, Julie’s altered its program design to respond to the impact of welfare reform’s mandate to “Work First”, which had a significant effect on Julie’s families. Julie’s services changed to reflect an increased focus on job readiness, on skills to help moms transition from public assistance to employment, on employer job linkages, and post-employment support. We expanded our children’s services by extending program hours and by designating a number of childcare spaces for Julie’s working mothers to help them maintain newly obtained employment. Additionally, Julie’s opened a licensed Infant Development Center and added summer programming to meet the needs of Julie’s school-aged children.
