About Us...
Pentz Run Youth Services, Inc., a non-profit
agency, began operations in 1976. In the early years, when we were
known as Bi-County, the focus was on Drug and Alcohol counseling and
treatment. Bi-County started as a halfway house for persons being
discharged from D&A treatment programs and evolved into a licensed
treatment program, offering inpatient D&A treatment to adolescents as
well as outpatient counseling to the general and incarcerated
population.
In September of 1994, our program changed
direction and became a group home and emergency shelter for adolescents.
The group home and emergency shelter provides services for adolescent
males and females, ages 10 through 17. The purpose of the program
is to provide a safe, secure, nurturing environment for youth that
require short or long-term alternatives to family living. Our program
has been designed to provide a highly structured, nurturing environment.
Residents are given the opportunity to grow socially, intellectually,
physically, morally and spiritually. We believe the program we
have designed provides youth the opportunity to develop these skills and
begin putting their lives in order; enabling them to make worthwhile
contributions not only to their families, peers, community and society,
but also to themselves. We were originally licensed for 15 beds
and increased our capacity to 18 due to an increase in referrals.
We have been successfully operating the group home and shelter for over 20 years with referrals coming from numerous counties in
Western/Central PA. This remains the main focus of our agency due
to the continued need for a safe place for high risk and disadvantaged
youth.
Our residential programs also include our
Transitional Living Program, consisting of two individual apartments
located across the street from our main facility. This program is
designed to help older youth gain their independence in a
semi-supervised yet totally supportive environment. The apartments are
each equipped with their own living/kitchen area, bedroom and bathroom
with the two units sharing laundry facilities.
Pentz Run also contracts with several county
agencies to provide independent living services to you in the community.
Jefferson, Cameron, Elk, Clearfield and Clarion counties are served by
our mobile independent living staff who are able to share resources and
ideas enhancing the quality and quantity of services available to the
youth in these counties.