Pressley Ridge’s Foster Care Expertise Positively Impacts Youth and Families Across the Nation

At the heart of all they do, Pressley Ridge believes that children grow best in healthy families – ideally their birth families, but in reality, that is not always possible. In times when youth need additional support or higher levels of care outside of the home, they deserve to be in a nurturing environment with caring, supportive adults.

Pressley Ridge is a national leader in Treatment Foster Care, a specialized level of care for youth who have experienced trauma and may have significant emotional or behavioral needs. Youth who enter treatment foster care are temporarily placed with foster parents who provide a safe home and help the children stay connected to their family and community. Treatment foster parents are specially trained to support the child’s emotional and developmental needs and serve as a key team member, working to help change behaviors and build new skills.

Pressley Ridge developed the first therapeutic foster care program in the U.S. in the early 1980’s, which has since evolved into a nationally recognized Treatment Foster Care model and evidence-based pre-service training. Through over 40 years of practical experience and research, the Pressley Ridge Treatment Foster Care (PR-TFC) pre-service training has been designed to prepare treatment foster parents to care for traumatized children in their homes. The PR-TFC curriculum is focused on an understanding of how to change behavior and rooted in trauma-informed care and the importance of a strong relationship between foster parents and youth.

Pressley Ridge operates treatment foster care programs in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. The organization trains and certifies foster parents using PR-TFC and then places youth with those families. In addition, Pressley Ridge trains other foster care agencies in their methods. Currently, more than 200 agencies across the U.S. are training their staff and foster parents using the PR-TFC curriculum.

“We have always taken our role as a partner in the community seriously, with a responsibility to make improvements in the field when necessary and share our knowledge to better support children and families through best practices,” said Susanne Cole, Pressley Ridge President and CEO. “Our expertise in Treatment Foster Care combined with the knowledge of what it takes to be a foster parent who supports children who have experienced trauma and other challenges is what led us to develop this curriculum and share it with others.”

In the past three years, nearly 400 foster care workers from organizations throughout the country have been certified as PR-TFC trainers. In addition, Colorado and Kansas have adopted PR-TFC as the official training curriculum for treatment and therapeutic foster care agencies within their states. This rapid increase in organizations utilizing PR-TFC confirms the transformative impact this training has on foster parents and the youth within their care.

Pressley Ridge’s current strategic plan is focused on ensuring that youth with serious behavioral challenges are living with their families or in the most family-like setting possible​. Pressley Ridge is actively working to expand family preservation services and to improve the quality of foster and kinship care nationwide for youth with significant behavioral health needs. Within the next few years, Pressley Ridge plans to release a kinship training curriculum geared specifically toward helping child welfare professionals in their support of aunts, uncles, grandparents and other extended family who are caring for youth.

As part of this strategic direction, Pressley Ridge recently took on a new role in child welfare in Texas as part of the state’s transition to a community-based care model. Operating as Texas Family Care Network, Pressley Ridge is responsible for transforming and managing the child welfare system in the Deep East Region. The goal is to improve outcomes for children and families with specific measurable results, which includes returning children to their biological families or finding adoptive families as quickly as possible.

Susanne Cole believes the community-based care model is the future of child welfare. “Pressley Ridge has expanded into this new business line as part of our commitment to a model that is best for kids and families and works to prevent them from entering the child welfare system in the first place.“

For nearly two centuries, Pressley Ridge has continuously adapted to meet the ever-changing needs of vulnerable kids and families. As the child welfare system continues to evolve, you can be certain that Pressley Ridge will remain at the forefront of ensuring that children and families receive the support and care they need to succeed.

Pressley Ridge Shows Their Heart for Kinship Families

 September is Kinship Caregiver Appreciation Month. Pressley Ridge is leading the way in kinship care and on September 4th, launched the Kinship Steering Committee Kick-Off. It was a day packed full of supportive conversations and brainstorming. 

A special thank you to the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services KinConnector Program for providing a beautiful variety of gifts and information for the Steering Committee. We also send out a huge thank you to Kansas Department For Children and Families for supporting Pressley Ridge’s development of a training curriculum geared specifically to help Child Welfare Professionals in their support kinship families. We are so excited to share the heart of why we are standing in the gap for kinship caregivers nationally. Great things are on the horizon!

Pressley Ridge Foster Family Receives Organized Dream Home

The Glover family with the Happy Lark Home Organizing team

Nathan and Amy Glover have dedicated their lives to positively influencing youth in the Pittsburgh region. The couple met while working at Urban Impact, where Nathan serves as the Director of Training. Amy now works as the Director of Children’s Ministry for Christ Church at Grove Farm just north of the city.

They always believed that fostering was in their family’s future, particularly because Amy was adopted from Korea shortly after birth. Nathan’s brother and sister-in-law were also foster parents and had recently adopted a young boy. Soon after, that child’s infant brother also needed a home, and Nathan and Amy, who already had two young children, stepped up to the challenge. The couple became certified treatment foster parents with Pressley Ridge in 2021 and are currently caring for two toddlers.

The Glovers purchased a home on Pittsburgh’s North Side, but one busy year later, they still hadn’t found the time to unpack all of their belongings. The family happily lived amongst boxes and clutter while raising their four kids under the age of seven.

The staff at Pressley Ridge recognized that Nathan and Amy needed help. So, when Happy Lark Home Organizing, who had recently worked on the Bridge to Home Foster Care Visitation Center, came to them with another brilliant idea, the Glover family immediately came to mind.

The Glovers eagerly welcomed Kara, Niki and Amber from Happy Lark for a tour of their spacious home in September 2023. With a goal of contributing to the family’s “well-being by facilitating an organized and supportive home environment, ultimately enhancing their daily routines,” the trio immediately got to work assembling a team of fellow organizers, home renovation professionals and sponsors to turn the dream into a reality.

For the past few months, the team has been working to sort, purge and organize everything in the home, as well as adding new storage features that will make this deserving couple’s lives easier to manage.

Speaking of the team’s desire to share their talents, Kara said, “We understand the profound impact that clutter and disorganization can have on various aspects of life, extending beyond the confines of one’s living space. By providing our organizational services, we aim to create a transformative experience for the Glover Family, positively influencing their daily lives.”

The project culminated with a volunteer day on Saturday, January 20th when 20+ generous individuals painted, decorated, arranged and put the finishing touches on the home. The final product was revealed to Nathan, Amy and the children later that afternoon.

While Happy Lark Home Organizing was the driving force behind this amazing transformation, they couldn’t have done it without the help of these kind volunteers and supporters: Alli B Organizing, The Ordered Home, Sunny Spaces Home Organizing, The Modern Steward, Simplified Professional Organizing, V-Systems, Container Store, Organizing Options, Christ Church at Grove Farm, 4:12 Foundation.

Check out more photos from the volunteer day below.

Foster Care Reunification

This foster care month, one family offers hope to others who may be experiencing a similar situation.

Poor decisions prior to the birth of her youngest son led to the removal of all three of Shannon Fleeson’s children. Newborn Xander was placed in a Pressley Ridge treatment foster home with the Parker family, while the two older youth were placed with a different agency. This was a wakeup call for Shannon and her husband, and they began taking the necessary steps to better their lives and reunite their family.

Noticing how well Xander was being cared for and how supportive the Parkers were of their communication and family visits, Shannon requested that her other two children be placed in Pressley Ridge foster homes. “It always felt like Pressley Ridge was working to reunify our family. So, we pushed hard to get all kids to be under Pressley Ridge’s care.”

The foster parents and Pressley Ridge Program Supervisor Alexa Bean went above and beyond to support Shannon as she was building a better life. Alexa helped her get a new pair of glasses and always made sure that the Fleeson family was able to spend quality time together. Shannon recalls, “One time the power was out at the building where we usually had our visits. Alexa went out of her way to keep our visit, even with this setback. She set up a visitation outside at a park since we couldn’t use the building.”

While it was stressful to be separated from her children, Shannon was in regular contact with them, which made her own journey much more successful. She appreciated that Pressley Ridge encouraged the biological family and foster family connection. The Fleesons and Parkers worked as team, and Shannon believes that her son Xander truly benefitted from his time in foster care.

The Fleesons have worked hard to stay clean ever since Xander was born, and as a result the family has been reunited. They continue to stay in touch with the Parkers – even making them Xander’s godparents – as well as the Pressley Ridge staff. Shannon “Alexa takes her job to heart. The kids are not just another file. She gave us chance of retribution, a second chance.”

Shannon wants other families who are experiencing Child Protective Services cases to see that there are success stories, and they shouldn’t give up. She wants those families to see that foster care doesn’t have to be a negative experience; foster care workers are supportive of reunification.

Alexa Bean couldn’t be more proud of the effort of both the foster and biological families. “This is what family engagement looks like. Due to the foster parent’s willingness to be a support for the Fleeson family, they were able to build a positive bond and relationship that continues to this day. I am so proud of the work, time and effort that both the Fleesons and Parkers displayed throughout the case. I am thankful to be part of their successful reunification story.”

 

Foster Family: Kacy and Levi

In July 2016, my husband and I, newly married and just buying our first house, decided to go on a crazy adventure…foster care! We had one son that was 4 at the time. We had tried to get pregnant and just weren’t successful. Fostering kept coming up and really pulling at me, so my husband, being the great man he is, agreed to my somewhat crazy idea. At the time we were only 24 and 22. We had a young child and were just starting our career and lives. By no means were we the “typical foster parents” or did we have the perfect lives or perfect home.

In February 2017, we got our second placement, a little red head tiny, medically fragile baby. We knew nothing about medically fragile kids or children with special needs, but we knew that God would send us whoever he wanted with us.

We started fostering a little naive. We just wanted to foster, not to adopt. We wanted to just provide a safe loving home while the parents got help. With our second placement, we quickly learned that was not always the case. Sometimes the parents just were not in the place to raise a child.

Our son came to us in the middle of the night on February 6, 2017. He was born at 25 weeks, drug exposed and very tiny with a lot of health issues. He had a twin sister, but she did not make it. When he came to us he was almost 6 months old, only about 10 pounds and couldn’t sit up or roll over. He couldn’t even hold his head up.

We immediately began Birth to Three, and with lots of love and cuddles we watched this little helpless baby turn into a feisty little boy. He started reaching milestones and growing non stop! Watching him FINALLY thrive was worth EVERY struggle….and we had A LOT of struggles.

Fostering is HARD, you will worry, you will have sleepless nights, but even in the days that I thought our son may go back to his biological parents, I kept one thing in mind: focus on what I can control. I had this precious child of God in my home for THAT day and for THAT day I was going to show him love, show him he could trust, and teach him all I could.

We never know what tomorrow will bring, but these children don’t ask to be exposed to drugs, they don’t ask to be abused, they don’t ask for this life. We as a community must step up and meet these kids where they are and help them thrive. Whether it is for a month or for a lifetime, every child deserves someone that loves them unconditionally and know that they have someone in their corner that will never give up on them. 

If my husband and I, in our young twenties, could foster, then anyone can. These kids do not need a perfect family, they just need LOVE. It is not always easy, and your heart will break in a million pieces, but it will ALWAYS be worth it!

Kacy and Levi,
Pressley Ridge Foster Parents

Each year, Pressley Ridge helps thousands of children learn, grow and thrive through the support of a safe and nurturing foster home. And it all starts with one person deciding to be the difference for a child in need. If you’d like more information on becoming a foster parent, click the button below.

TREATMENT FOSTER CARE INFORMATION

Fostering in Faith

Reichart Family“Love fiercely and hold loosely.” This is the mantra of Niki and Seth Reichart’s decade-long journey of fostering.

Their mission began with a desire to adopt shortly after their first son was born. The emotional toll of five failed adoptions eventually led them to fostering, a decision made based on the teachings of the Bible.

Time after time, they hear the question – how can you bring these children into your home without getting too attached? To that, Niki says, “We don’t do it because we are immune to the heartbreak. We do it because we are commanded to by Jesus. You have to love with a great risk to your own heart.”

Today, the Reicharts’ home and hearts are full with four biological boys and four adopted children ranging in age from four to twelve. Niki admits fostering wouldn’t be so easy without her “tribe” of fellow foster moms, who are her safe zone for venting.

Niki’s tribe includes her sister-in-law Hannah Origel, who, along with her husband Jesus (otherwise known as Zeus), has fostered a total of eleven children.

For Hannah, fostering is contagious. Her parents and grandparents took in kids while growing up, and she saw the joy her brothers’ families derived from fostering. She and Zeus believe that the Bible has called them to bring in children and give them a loving place to stay. They want to serve the community, and fostering is a real, tangible way to do that.

With two biological sons, Hannah and Zeus began fostering in 2014 in response to the need for bilingual families to care for undocumented Hispanic youth in Pittsburgh. From there, they adopted one child (and hopefully, soon to be two).

Just like the Reicharts, Hannah and Zeus are inevitably questioned about the heartbreak that comes with fostering. “You can’t think about yourself. Imagine a kid being ripped from their home with nowhere to go. It’s an honor to be the one to get that phone call and to be a part of these children’s stories.”Origel Family

Hannah, too, relies on the invaluable support of the foster mom tribe. When times get tough, they remind her of her purpose. She and Niki also lean heavily on the staff of Pressley Ridge, who is available 24/7 and has been with them through the good times and bad. Monthly meetings provide time for both the foster parents and children to connect and learn from one another.

Both families are grateful that their biological children have grown up with foster care and adoption as a part of their lives. The experience has made them empathetic, loving and generous, just like their parents.
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The Reicharts and Origels are a testament to the difference that one family can make in the life of a child.