On April 10, a community forum was held by Dauphin County for the purpose of giving members of the community a chance to share their concerns regarding Dauphin County Children and Youth.   During the “’Mending Broken Fences’ A Holistic Approach to Building Relationships” forum was a panel of county representatives to give updates and field questions.  They also highlighted several community agencies that could be resources, including Valley Youth House (VYH), and we were invited to present our Dauphin County programs, Adolescents Achieving Independence (AAI) & Street Outreach Program (SOP), The Synergy Project.

Melanie Hill, Central PA Associate Director at VYH, gave the presentation at the forum, sharing about the successes she has seen from youth being in the system. A number of VYH youth also attended the forum and 3 youth chose to speak about their experience in the Children and Youth system.  Following the event, community members as well as panel participants took time to talk our youth with words of encouragement and to obtain additional information about our programs.  We had a resource table and shared VYH literature. Community members gave VYH a lot of positive feedback for the presentation and for the work we are doing with youth in Dauphin County. Commissioner Hartwick also responded with praise for VYH’s work with the youth in their county, and complimented our youth for their speeches.