Carolina Youth Development Center

Our Mission: To empower and equip our community’s most vulnerable children by providing a safe environment, educational support, and career readiness, in collaboration with families and community partners.

Our Vision is that all children will have loving and stable families and a nurturing community empowering them to lead successful lives.

Founded in 1790, Carolina Youth Development Center is an important part of Charleston’s historic and cultural heritage, a direct descendant of the Charleston Orphan House, America’s first publicly-funded orphanage.

Today, CYDC provides programs reaching over 1,200 children, youth and their families locally each year. We care for young people who are victims of physical and sexual abuse, neglect and abandonment, as well as providing resources and support to area families at risk of having their children removed from their home.  

When children arrive at CYDC in need of a safe, stable place to call home; some are in-between foster homes, others are waiting to move to a forever home, and some will live with us until adulthood. Whatever their next step, it’s important that they are welcomed into a supportive transition home that provides educational, vocational and recreational activities, keeping them on the path to a bright future. 

Children and youth live in a cottage environment that nurtures their individual needs while sharing in the responsibilities and opportunities of living in a home-like setting. There are two cottages on CYDC’s North Charleston Campus, known as Ledford and CES (Charleston Emergency Shelter), and one cottage at its Moncks Corner campus known as Callen-Lacey Center for Children. In 2019, CYDC opened a fourth cottage in North Charleston to provide transitional housing for youth aging out of foster care. Known as NuHouse, young adults ranging in age from 18 to 21 years old will live in a supportive environment, engaged in CYDC’s innovative “NuHome” program that focuses on helping young adults transfer with skills and confidence to living independently.

Accredited by the Council on Accreditation (COA) continuously since 1980, CYDC is a funded partner of Trident United Way, and a member of Child Welfare League of America, the Palmetto Association for Children and Families and the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities.

Carolina Youth Development Center is a 501(c)(3) organization.