Our Story
Lodestar was founded in 2016 by James Regan Jr., who had one simple goal in mind- to empower children in need. James’s experience working in various settings- from summer camps to social service and clinical settings- gave him the foundation he needed to understand exactly who and how to help.
Lodestar Children’s Services started small, serving less than a dozen children in Western and Central Suffolk County. After some slow, but steady growth, Lodestar began to expand to serve all of Long Island, employing more workers, providing different service types, and reaching out to new communities. We began offering Child Family Treatment and Support Services (CFTSS) in 2019. Similar to Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS), this group of services allows us to work directly with youth in their homes and their communities, but provides a more in-depth clinical approach towards early intervention and family engagement in treatment. More importantly though, CFTSS offers families broader eligibility options, which allowed Lodestar to begin helping children who were previously ineligible. This made our support model much more accessible to those who need them.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Lodestar was one of few organizations in the Long Island area to take on the challenge of continuing to provide these community-based services remotely. Telehealth calls and strict in-person safety protocols allowed us to not only continued offering these invaluable services to our youth, but kept expanding and helping more people during such a volatile time.
Over the years, we have hosted a number of successful fundraisers to raise money and awareness for mental health and suicide prevention, including our two main annual events, Milestones for Mental Health Walk in the spring and Rooftop Conversations in the Fall. With the money we have raised over the years, we have been able to continue hiring professional and passionate workers and have opened our own youth recreational center in Farmingdale, NY in the Airport Plaza.
Since our start, we have served over 700 families and in late 2024, we expanded our service area to include Queens and Brooklyn, allowing us to help even more children with mental health needs and their families, decreasing the need for out-of-home placement and keeping families together. In April 2025, we celebrate nine years of service to our communities.
Our Mission
At our core, our mission is to “empower children and their families,” and be proactive by meeting youth with mental health needs where they’re at. Many of the youth who Lodestar supports are at risk of out-of-home placement in residential programs or hospitals. Our services provide the support children need to stay within the comfort and safety of their homes and communities.
We work with the NYS Office of Mental Health and Department of Health, providing services to youth 21 and under along with their families. Using a strengths-based approach, we focus on meeting kids where they’re at, their inherent skills and values, and center their self-proclaimed needs to provide necessary support. Each child is different and we tailor our services to meet their unique needs both now and in the future.
Lodestar Children’s Services provides two different groups of services: Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) and Child Family Treatment and Support Services (CFTSS). Both service types provide support to the child and family, but have different requirements for eligibility. Some families may be eligible for both.
