Kidspeace
KidsPeace is a private charity serving the behavioral and mental health needs of children, families and communities. Founded in 1882, KidsPeace provides a psychiatric hospital, a range of residential treatment programs, educational services and a variety of community-based treatment programs and foster care and community programs.
KidsPeace offers services in Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and the District of Columbia.
KidsPeace was founded by the president of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation William Thurston, in response to a smallpox epidemic that had left many children in the area homeless. In 1895, Captain James Wiley donated a Salisbury Township home and 6 acres (24,000 m2) of surrounding land to the charity. Afterwards, the organization came to be known as "Wiley House" and remained so for many years, until it officially changed its name to "KidsPeace" in January 1992.
The largest KidsPeace facility is the Orchard Hills Campus located in Orefield, Pennsylvania, outside of Allentown, Pennsylvania. It is a 262-acre (106 ha) campus with such amenities as an Olympic-sized swimming pool, a ropes course, an apple orchard, playgrounds, a gym with wrap-around track, driving range, multiple athletic fields, recreation lounges and more. To educate the children, KidsPeace utilizes its own private schools, staffed with specially trained teachers. There are schools both on and off campus to provide educational services to residential clients and students receiving community treatment services.
According to its official website, there were 8,628 children in KidsPeace programs/centers in 2005 and over 2,000 children’s professionals were trained at the KidsPeace Institute that same year. KidsPeace is one of America's oldest children's charities and has treated over 140,000 children in need since 1882.
KidsPeace is accredited by The Joint Commission in Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Other accreditations include the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools.
KidsPeace does not discriminate in regard to admissions in terms of sex, race, creed, color, national origin, LEP (Limited English Proficiency), religious beliefs, disabilities or handicapping conditions.
In 1993, Dean Sine, a counselor in the Orefield, Pennsylvania facility, restrained a 12-year-old boy by sitting on his buttocks and then lower back. The boy reported that he couldn't breathe, but the restraint was continued until after the boy was unresponsive, when it was discovered that the boy had stopped breathing. Resuscitation attempts failed, and the counselor was subsequently charged and acquitted of homicide in criminal court in 1995. KidsPeace was also sued regarding the incident, and settled out of court for over $1 million.
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