Crossnore Communities for Children expand its services to keep more at-risk children with their families rather than in foster care into more counties, including Alamance County.
Homebuilders is an evidence-based family preservation service working with children who are at highest risk of entering or reentering the foster care system. Homebuilders staff work within a family’s home roughly 10 hours each week, three to five days per week, to reduce or remove risk factors and improve child safety to ensure children can stay safely at home with their family. The goal of the program is to remove the risk of harm to the child instead of removing the child.
The organization previously offered Homebuilders services to four Region 3 counties, including Guilford. These services are being expanded to 11 additional counties, including Alamance, Caswell, Chatham, Orange and Randolph.
Angela Squire, Crossnore’s senior director of prevention services, said Crossnore began offering Homebuilders services in the Triad in October 2021 with a donation from Elizabeth M. “Betty” Strickland. Since then, Crossnore’s Homebuilders team has served 62 children and their families, with 96% success in avoiding placement of children who were at imminent risk of entering foster care.
With the expansion of services, the NC DHHS estimates Crossnore will soon be serving roughly 170 families in the Homebuilders program each year.
