Community Based Services

Pinebrook offers an array of community-based programs designed to provide assistance to families in their homes and throughout their community. By providing services in this manner, they are more accessible and effective and ultimately more likely to either prevent the need for out-of-home placement of children or facilitate successful family reunification for children who are in an out-of-home placement. Community-Based Programs include:

• Family Life Education (Individual and Psychoeducational Groups)
  
• In-home Respite Care
  
• Transportation and Family Visitation
  

For more information about any of these services, please contact Michael Shaffer, Director of Social Services, at 610-432-3919 or email .

Family Life Education
The Family Life Education program is designed to provide a supportive, shared learning experience to help families better understand and deal with problems of family living, promote the parenting skills development/enhancement necessary to maximize the strengths of those parenting or preparing to parent, and to respect the uniqueness and integrity of each family.

These services are provided in group settings throughout the community or in individual sessions in the family’s own home and address the skill-development needs of parenting adults, pregnant and/or parenting teens, including those incarcerated, in substance abuse treatment/recovery, those with intellectual limitations or mental health illness, parents with limited English proficiency or speak Spanish predominantly.

With an emphasis on promoting growth and personal development in the area of responsible parenting and other life-skills training, topics are presented through structured activities with the provision of information using handouts, worksheets, educational videos, and modeling of appropriate behavior.

The evidence-based Nurturing Parenting curriculum is used with all participants. Sessions cover topics such as:

• The Basics of Child Development
  
• Feelings
  
• Self-Esteem
  
• Communication and Problem Solving
  
• Managing Stress
  
• Guiding Behavior/Discipline Techniques
  
• Establishing Family Routines and Structure

In addition, outcome measures are used to assess the skill growth of participants in various areas of parenting.

To learn more about our Family Life Education Services, please contact us at (610) 432-3919.

In-home Respite Care
Pinebrook’s In-home Respite Care Service is designed to provide one-on-one specialized child care for children who have a DSM diagnosis, including Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Children and adolescents who need behavioral health services and require one-on-one supervision and therapeutic intervention to ensure their emotional and physical safety can be considered for Pinebrook's in-home respite care service.

Services are provided on an hourly basis in the family’s home to maintain stability for the family and child, and to allow the caregivers some time to attend to their own needs.

Staff make productive use of care-giving time by tailoring services to children based upon goals mutually agreed upon between parents and PInebrook.

Referrals for In-home Respite Care program are made from both private and public sources. County mental health agencies may notify Pinebrook that families are requesting services and that the county mental health agency is authorizing payment for services. In addition, families can purchase in-home respite care by directly contacting Pinebrook Services at 610-432-3919. For more information, please contact: Bonnie Unangst, Program Supervisor.

Transportation and Family Visitation Program (TVP)
The Family Visitation/Transportation Program is a collaborative program designed to provide transportation to and supervision of visitation between children in substitute care and their non-custodial parents or other relatives. This is accomplished by:

1. providing transportation for the children and/or families to designated places for their visits. These could include the biological family’s residence, a relative’s home, a Pinebrook Services or County Children and Youth offices, a residential facility, or other specified locations, including sites outside the family’s county of residence. Visits can occur during weekdays, weeknights, holidays and weekends at a time mutually agreed upon by Pinebrook, the Children and Youth agency and the family.
   
   
2. supervising or monitoring the visit and making appropriate interventions throughout the visit to ensure the emotional and physical safety of the participants. If close supervision of a family were not warranted, staff would nevertheless remain in close proximity to the visit site to be available to the family and children, if needed.

Additional support is offered to families through a program of “facilitative supervision” that would include parenting skills education, coaching and modeling of appropriate parental behavior as well as visit reports and court testimony.

For more information, please contact Bonnie Unangst, Program Supervisor, at 610-432-3919 or email .