Valley Youth House’s #CouchesDontCount campaign was featured in Philly Mag’s G Philly column on October 7 – you can read it HERE. A photo from Outfest on the VYH couch was also chosen as one of the favorite Instagram posts of the day by G Philly; you can see the others HERE.

Valley Youth House’s #CouchesDontCount campaign was featured in the October 8 issue of Metro Philadelphia, and online HERE. “’You can only go from house to house so many times before you are eventually on your own for real,’ said Jodie Stevens, 22. “When my foster parent found out that I was gender-queer, she kicked me […]

Did you know that 51% of youth surveyed during Philadelphia’s August 2015 Youth Count were couch-surfing?  These youth are “couch ho pping” or rotating their evenings from friend to friend, without a home to return to. They’re not sleeping on the street or in the open, but they are homeless. Additionally, national statistics show that 43% of youth who use […]

Valley Youth House is named in a lawsuit against Governor Wolf for the nearly 80-day budget impasse. Along with 110 other organizations, Valley Youth House is part of Pennsylvania Council of Children, Youth and Family Services. All of these organizations are impacted by the lack of budget; state and federal contracts that fund foster care, child […]

The Morning Call’s “Help for Families” column is a collaboration between The Morning Call and parenting professionals brought together by Valley Youth House’s Project Child.   QUESTION: 14-year-old son told me that his best friend makes the comment, “Hashtag, I’d rape that,” every time he sees a pretty girl. I am upset for my son to […]

Sleep Out for Homelessness will be held at Neffs Union UCC from Saturday,September 26th at 6pm to Sunday Sept 27th at 11am. This fundraiser, organized by teens from the Penn Northeast Conference (PNEC) of the United Church of Christ, supports the Synergy Project.

Thank you to our youngest Backpack Challenge supporters Patrick, Aela, Tristan, and Lukas! They made over $130 at their lemonade stand for the Backpack Challenge, and also collected a huge basket of school supplies. We are SO grateful to Patrick, Aela, Tristan and Lukas for their hard work to ensure that foster care youth in […]

Metro Philadelphia featured the Youth Count on the front page of the paper on August 24! A new app, designed by Grassroots Unwired, debuted at the quarterly count held August 19 and is helping to more accurately survey youth experiencing homelessness in Philadelphia. We’re so excited to be able to share the great work done by our […]

The Morning Call’s “Help for Families” column is a collaboration between The Morning Call and parenting professionals brought together by Valley Youth House’s Project Child. QUESTION: 4- and 6-year-old daughters woke up one night to a house filled with smoke and the smoke detector blaring from a fire in our furnace. They were and still are very […]

The Backpack Challenge Closing Ceremony was held August 26 at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and CBS Philly covered the event. 18-year-old Leidy said there are a lot of misconceptions about older kids in foster care. “I definitely think that people don’t expect foster youth to make it this far, to make it to college, […]