Residential Services at the Children’s Home of Reading
The Children’s Home of Reading Residential Programs is for adolescent boys, ages 12 – 18, who have been abused or neglected, or face significant mental health challenges often behave in ways that are not socially acceptable without treatment. When treatment at home is not effective, those behaviors must be confronted in an intensive, supportive environment. The Children’s Home of Reading provides two distinct residential programs for this purpose. The treatment time is as brief as possible, while allowing necessary time for the child to heal and learn to make better behavioral choices.
The youth who are accepted into these residential programs are carefully chosen because we believe that their behavior can change. Their choices are often the result of fear, anger, and loss of control over their lives. Most often, they have experienced traumatic events in their childhood, and need individual and comprehensive intervention to understand the roots of their behaviors so they can find healing.
The Children’s Home of Reading Residential Programs give these youth and their families an opportunity to overcome their challenges. They learn to take responsibility for their actions and their future…behaviorally, emotionally and academically. For many of our clients, that empowerment brings healing and positive behavioral changes. Hope for a better future is restored and lives are forever changed. For more information please visit our web site http://www.childrenshomeofrdg.org/residentialservices.html
If you believe your child would benefit from one of these residential treatment programs, please contact our Admissions Supervisor, Beth Garrigan, at 610.478.8266 ext. 503 or by fax at 610.898.0001. Pre-placement interviews may be required to determine if our program meets the needs of your child.
Adoption Services at the Children’s Home
Our goal is to reunite foster children with their families. However, if this is not possible we are able to seamlessly transition the child into an adoption setting within our own agency. As part of this new commitment, we will also be teaching all of our foster families to be resource families, which include information sessions on foster parenting and adoptive parenting. Resulting, in a smoother transition for a foster child and their resource family, should adoption become an option. If a family is looking to adopt a child, services to train the family and help to identify a child is also available
Please contact a recruiter at 610-478-8129, for more information.
Specialized Foster Care
Specialized Foster Care (SFC) has been providing specialized foster care services for over two decades to children in Berks and contiguous counties. Each year SFC provides case management service individual, family and group therapy, supervised visitation with family, psychiatric services and access to medical services to over 120 children. These children are in need of a safe environment with loving caregivers. Most have been victims of abuse or neglect from their parents/ care givers or their families struggle with drug and alcohol abuse and mental health issues that prevent them from appropriately caring for their children.The goal of SFC is to reunite the child with his family by promoting healthy interactions with the family, though family education, and helping families access services to remediate the issues, which caused placement. If family reunification is determined not feasible, SFC works with the child towards other goals including independent living, adoption and/or alternative permanent living arrangements. SFC also interfaces with CHOR residential programs to facilitate discharges to a lower level of care.
Children are supervised 24 hours a day in the home of a foster family. Currently CHOR has approximately 35 foster families and many kinship families. Foster families and kinship families are required to have 30 hours of training per year, and child abuse and criminal record history clearances.
The SFC Program also has mom baby and independent living curriculums, which assists foster children with parenting, daily life skills, and interpersonal relationships to promote healthy adulthood.
The staff of SFC includes, a program director, a program supervisor, family workers, case managers, case aids, administrative staff and two master level clinicians and a consulting psychiatrist. Our staff is dedicated to providing treatment services to all members of the child’s family to promote healthy family relationships.
Acute Partial Hospitalization Program
The Acute Partial Hospitalization Program (APHP) is designed to provide a therapeutic community for children who find it difficult to function in school and community environments. It is utilized as an alternative to hospitalization for youth at risk for inpatient treatment or as ongoing support following a youth’s discharge from inpatient care or residential treatment. The focus of the program is to provide intensive multidisciplinary mental health care on an ambulatory basis while maintaining the client within his or her social support system.Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care
Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC) provides an alternative to institutional, residential and group home care for youth with chronic juvenile delinquency. Youth involved with MTFC often show emotional and behavioral problems that present a challenge. Through a collaborative effort by the Treatment Team, the program focuses on decreasing anti-social behaviors and increasing developmentally appropriate social skills and behaviors, to help youth experience success at home, at school, and in the community
