Health

Pressley Ridge Celebrates 190 Years of Serving Children And Families

Leave a comment



PITTSBURGH (PRWEB)

The rich history of Pressley Ridge began in 1832 in an orphanage on Pittsburgh’s North Side. Now celebrating its 190th anniversary, Pressley Ridge serves 9,000 children and families each year across six states, including Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware.

Over the course of nearly two centuries, Pressley Ridge has continued to evolve to serve diverse communities, as well as the needs of the most complex youth and families. Each year, thousands of children and families find their path through a variety of home, school and community-based services. More than 70 innovative programs provide a safe and supportive environment where children, youth and families can work to increase their sense of wellbeing and achieve sustainable, positive outcomes.

Pressley Ridge is a vital resource that provides a continuum of services, including:

  • Community-Based Mental Health Services: Individualized services designed to strengthen, preserve and keep families together in order to overcome whatever challenges they may be facing, so that children can remain at home, and in their own schools and communities. Office-based and school-based outpatient mental health services support children, adolescents, adults and families in the community.

  • Foster Care & Adoption: Trained foster parents ensure children are safe and well cared for in a secure and stable home while we work to reunite them with their biological families or find an adoptive family when reunification isn’t an option.

  • Specialized Education: Education with an individualized, strength-based, holistic approach to academic and behavioral growth with an added focus on social and life skills to help students reach their maximum potential. Specialized services include education for students with serious emotional and behavioral challenges, as well as children impacted by autism and those who are Deaf or hard of hearing.

  • Residential Treatment Services: Short-term programs in a supportive live-in environment with 24-hour treatment staff to help youth learn the skills that will enable them to return home, strengthen family relationships and become better connected to their community. Services include working with the biological family in order to ensure a successful transition home.

  • Supportive Services for Transition-Age Youth: Programs offering youth between the ages of 16-24 the essential skills and support to make a sound transition into adulthood, including workforce development and independent living.


Pressley Ridge is nationally recognized for having developed the nation’s first treatment foster care curriculum in the early 1980s. This curriculum, which is based on 40 years of research and experience, is now the only evidence-based pre-service curriculum for treatment foster parents.

For more information on Pressley Ridge, visit http://www.pressleyridge.org.

Share article on social media or email:

Leave a Reply