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Historical Overview
The roots of the New Direction program can be traced back to mid-1980s. The
lack of positive opportunities in the community had caused too many youth to turn to the negative choices of drugs, alcohol, gang activities and crime. Several volunteer attempts to create positive recreational opportunities for Sullivant Gardens youth eventually grew into an official program called the Franklin County Youth Leadership Program in the spring of 1988. The program received administrative support from the Franklin County Juvenile Court and Columbus Metropolitan Housing Authority(CMHA) and was funded by the Governer's Office of Criminal Justice Services through the Alliance for Cooperative Justice. The program was housed in a two-bedroom apartment, located at 610 Van Buren Drive, Apt. B.
Building on the work of the Youth Leadership Program, New Direction started as a consortium of county and state agencies working together to provide a range of services to high risk youth. The New Direction program as it currently exist officially began in February, 1989 as one of four demonstration projects funded through the Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services(ODADAS), Franklin County, Alcohol Drug and Mental Health Board (ADAMH) and the Governor's Office on Criminal Justice Services(OCJS).
In 1990 the collaboration made a funding request to Columbus City Council to renovate the old laundromat building located at 651 Harmon Avenue.The City Council responded with a grant of $45,000 and the building opened for community use in late 1990.
In October 1991, the program went through a restructuring process. In the process, the program's focus on at-risk youth broadened to include comprehensive services to families,schools and the community. The new structure included the following: after-school social adjustment groups, employment stipend training, individual/family counseling, crisis intervention and in-school staff development training and mediation.
In October 1993 the New Direction program relocated its administrative office from the two bedroom aptartment on Van Buren to 859 West Mound St.
On April 27, 1994 the New Direction Program incorporated and became an official entity under the new name of the Community for New Direction. We were approved for 501(c) (3) status in April of 1995.
In 1999 the agency expanded to two locations after receiving a grant from the ADAMH Board. Our current locations are as follows:
CND East Office 983 East Main Street and CND West Office (Administrative) 2096 West Mound Street.
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