Warminster Youth Home's Story Is More Than Runaways (ICYMI)

WARMINSTER, PA — Valley Youth House, a shelter for at-risk teens in Warminster, has experienced a number of teen runaways in recent months. The runaway reports have been a cause for alarm for some members of the community, but administrators at the York Road youth home say it's a complicated situation.

Since August, there have been at least four runaways involving Valley Youth House residents reported publicly by Warminster Police.

Administrators, in an interview with Patch, recently discussed the facility and its services in an effort to educate the community about the youth home.

"The reality is, these are complicated situations with many factors impacting the success of families and young people," said Lisa Weingartner, senior vice president of Valley Youth House.

Valley Youth House is a private, not-for-profit agency founded in 1973 in the Lehigh Valley. In 2002, the organization expanded into eastern Pennsylvania, where most of its services are delivered today.

While Warminster residents may be most familiar with the organization through its local shelter, the two shelters Valley Youth House runs only account for a small percentage of the teens with whom the agency works. The other shelter is located in Bethlehem.

While Valley Youth House may be working with 400 to 500 teens at any given time, the shelter in Warminster houses a maximum of 13 residents, Weingartner said.

The agency provides street outreach to homeless youth, in-home mental health and substance abuse services and individualized programs for at-risk kids. Most of the teens who receive service from Valley Youth House are referred there by government agencies and most have histories of trauma, abuse, drug use or mental health issues, she said.

Only those who are in immediate need of housing spend time at the shelters, Weingartner said, and the organization works to get them into foster homes or other more stable living situations.

"The Bucks shelter is a short-term placement," she said. "Shelters are not generally known as good places for long-term. The youth are in and out pretty quickly."

She said the typical stay at Valley Youth House's shelter is less than 30 days. About 85 percent of the shelter's residents are from Bucks County, Weingartner said.

Runaway Attempts

The most recent runaway was reported last week, when an 18-year-old who was last seen at the Burger King on Street Road disappeared. She, like other teens who have left the home, later returned safely, according to police.

In early September, a brother and sister, ages 16 and 14, were believed to have run away from the shelter in the early-morning hours. A 16-year-old boy ran away in late August and, earlier that month, another 16-year-old left, believed to be heading to the Allentown or Philadelphia area.

Weingartner said that, when dealing with at-risk teens, such runaway attempts are inevitably going to happen and, at some times, they're more frequent than at others.

"We're not a locked facility," she said. "There are certainly locked facilities, but that's not what we do. You need both — that's just not the population we serve. (But) sometimes, we'll get youth who need to be in a more structured setting."

She said part of the perceived uptick, too, can be attributed to increased attention paid by law enforcement and other agencies to the dangers facing teens on the run. With issues like trafficking and opioid abuse on the minds of many, workers are quicker to go to authorities in runaway situations and authorities are quicker to make them public these days, she said.

"There are definitely times when we have flows when we say, 'These kids are pretty challenging,' " Weingartner said. "But there's also more of a push to make sure people are aware kids are missing in the community.

"I think part of what people are seeing is a push to let people know a young person's in trouble. We used to not do as much of that in the past."

'An element of grace'

She emphasized that the teens at Valley Youth House are not being locked up and punished. Instead, they're kids in tough situations who need help. As such, staff tries to make their lives as normal as possible during their time at the home.

"We work really hard to be community-based and more normal," Weingartner said. "When I was a teenager, the more choices and opportunities I had to make decisions for myself, the better I learned. We're really working on facilitating internal control for young people — making the right decisions for the right reasons."

In many cases, Weingartner said, the approach works. She said statistics show 63 percent of teens who work with Valley Youth House show an improvement in emotional well-being. That, she says, is the bottom line.

"I think the most important piece is to recognize the importance of an opportunity for youth to be in a safe space," she said. "(We need) an element of grace — to the youth and the families and government officials ... everyone who's trying to work to make that child successful."