Providing Promising Futures

Located on Morris Road in Meadville, PA the Petersen house allows Bethesda to continue their mission of providing Promising Futures by fulfilling a need in our community and expanding our Foster Care and Permanency program.

Bethesda Lutheran Services Petersen Foster Home Program is designed to provide a normalized, family- like, community-based, cost efficient, substitute living arrangement for up to six children, ages 5-11 who need temporary respite care or are ordered by the Juvenile Court into foster care. The program provides a foster family who will meet the basic physical and emotional needs of children in need of substitute care. Children with emotional and behavioral problems or with special physical needs are placed with foster parents who have skills necessary to deal with special needs. The goal of this program is to offer a home-like treatment environment that children can live in while working to reunify with their family. The Petersen foster parents will become a part of a professional team dedicated to the wellbeing of children in their care. Specialized support services are available for the children in the Petersen home, and care support is available around the clock if needed. This program is unique as treatment will occur in the foster home and the discharge resources home. This will help the clinical team transfer the skills to the family in various ways. They also provide general case management, facilitating team meetings, and psychiatric care when needed. We will also be offering aftercare programming to continue to work with the families after they are reunified with their family in their home.