Valley Youth House Committee

Programs: Independent living program - provides assistance with education, employment, residential planning and attainment of life and interpersonal skills for youth between the ages of 14 and 24. The program provides out-client services as well as residential programs to assist in-care youth and those who are homeless or otherwise separated from family support in developing the skills and resources to transition to independence. Programs are provided in 14 eastern and central pennsylvania counties (bucks, carbon, chester, dauphin, delaware, lackawanna, lancaster, lehigh, luzerne, montgomery, northampton, perry, philadelphia, and york), and served a total of 2,086 youth and 282 babies in 2017. Outcomes exceed national benchmarks for similar populations and included: transitioning to stable housing (74% vs. 68% statewide); high school completion or re-enrollment and progress toward graduation (77% vs. 65% statewide); and employment (47% vs. 44% statewide).

shelter operations - two shelter programs, located in lehigh and bucks counties, provide 24 hour a day, 365 days a year, walk-in crisis intervention, short-term residency, counseling and life skills education to youth between the ages of 12 and 20 at the lv shelter and ages 8 and 20 at the bucks shelter. In 2017, a total of 215 youth were served, with 95% discharged back to their families or transitioned successfully to other safe placement. Four federally-funded street outreach programs serve the cities of allentown and philadelphia and bucks and dauphin counties providing emergency supplies (food, hygiene products, camping gear, etc. ), counseling and linkages to community resources to ensure youth safety. A team of outreach workers operate from vehicles that are stocked with emergency supplies such as food, clothing, camping gear and hygiene products. A total of 1,019 youth were served in 2017 at locations in the community where street youth are known to congregate, including malls, parks, along rivers and railroad tracks, and in adult homeless encampments.

children's behavioral health services - this program has two components. Family based mental health program provides in-home counseling and education services to those families that have an emotionally troubled child. Behavioral health rehabilitative services provides behavior specialists, mobile therapists and/or therapeutic staff to work with children and families in the home, school or community to improve an emotionally troubled child's behavior. The goal for both programs is to build the family's ability to manage the behavioral and mental health care needs of the children and prevent the need for placing the child in a more restrictive environment. A total of 251 children and their families were served in 2017, with an 96% success rate in maintaining the child in least restrictive environment.