Children & Youth

"What's done to children, they will do to society."   Karl Menninger

James Holtry is the Executive Director of this unit.  The office is located in room 401 of the Municipal Building, 400 S. 8th St., Lebanon PA  17042.  Phone 274-2801, extension 2304.

Referrals come from schools, police, hospitals, citizens, agencies....  An Intake/CPS Unit investigates, validates, and develops a treatment plan to close the case, or refer to a group home unit, foster care/institutional unit, or protective services.   An Intake/CPS Unit must investigate child abuse cases within 24 hours and make final disposition within 30 days.  General intakes are typically investigated with 48-72 hours and final disposition within 30 days.

An agency counselor provides secondary services to both individuals and families for active cases of the agency in all units.  The Counselor also provides group therapy, victim groups, independent living groups, and parenting courses.  Outside referrals for counseling are not accepted.

If your child is placed in Foster Care, take note!  There is a new federal law called the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997.   This new law requires big changes in the ways Children and Youth works with you and your family.  This new law applies to you even if you asked Children and Youth to place your child in a home away from you.

The new federal law sets strict limits and deadlines that you must meet.   You need to think long, hard & seriously about the consequences of:

The consequences may be that your parental rights will be terminated without your agreement, and your children placed for adoption.

You likely know while your children are living away from home, you should be working with your social workers.  You know you need to make changes in the ways you care for your children.  This may mean making big changes in your own life.

Under the new law, parents are required to take responsibility for making those changes in a limited amount of time.

Children & Youth is also required to do things differently under this new law.  When a child is placed away from home, there will be hearings in Family Court.  These hearings will determine if your child will remain away from your home and when or if your child can go home.

Permanency means your child must be able to expect a decision about where and with whom he or she will live.  The new law allows only 12 months -one year- before that decision is made by Family Court.

At the permanency hearing, there must be a decision at that time about:

Whether your child or children will return home will depend upon whether you have made the necessary changes in your life and how you plan to take care of your children.

If you haven't made needed changes and your child has been in foster care or in another living arrangement for 15 of the past 22 months, your parental rights could be terminated by Family Court.  Your child or children may then be placed for adoption.

What kinds of problems should you work on?

You must work with your social workers to solve the problems that led to your children going to live with relatives or a foster family.  These may be problems like:

The important thing to remember is that you do not have much time to solve these problems.  Children & Youth will work with you and provide services to help you resolve your problems.

The new law requires you show you have solved, or nearly solved, these problems within one year of your child's going into foster care or other living arrangement.  If you cannot do this, your child may be placed for adoption.

You may not be able to have your children returned to you if: