Our History:
The non-profit Center for Healthy Families (CHF) grew out of more than a decade of work on the part of Howard S. Rosen, PhD., a community psychologist who uses empirically tested community behavioral models to serve economically disadvantaged populations. Dr. Rosen has provided consultation and leadership to School Districts as well as Children and Youth agencies in Dauphin, Adams, Chester, and Snyder Counties and has secured and operated prevention grants on their behalf through Hempfield Behavioral Health (HBH), a sub-chapter S corporation. HBH is now a $3 million operation that runs half a dozen proven programs designed to prevent major social problems, such as child abuse, delinquency, school failure, and emotional and behavioral problems.
Because these programs represent unique and important contributions to the community, Dr. Rosen began to feel that he needed a non-profit division that would allow him to achieve several additional goals—namely, greater involvement of community stakeholders, opportunities to stimulate greater public awareness of successful prevention programs, avenues for securing additional funding and a vehicle for assuring that successful prevention programs could continue in the mid-state following the time that his career might end. For this reason, in April of 2001 he established the Center for Healthy Families.
Since its founding, CHF has secured approximately $1.2 Million in funds for such important needs as preventing problems of pregnancy in the Latino population, preventing child abuse, reducing delinquency, improving maternal-child health and behavioral health outcomes, and disseminating evidence-based prevention and treatment through professional conferences. Funding has come from such organizations as the March of Dimes (enhancing access to prenatal care and services for Latino immigrant mothers in Adams County), Dauphin County Children and Youth and Metro Bank (an after school program for inner city middle school troublemakers), Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (Gettysburg Communities That Care, Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies, Healthy Families Dauphin County, Nurse-Family Partnership, Aggression Replacement Training, the PAX Good Behavior Game and Multisystemic Therapy), the Whitaker Foundation and Capital Area United Way (additional funding for Nurse Family Partnership). In each case in which grant renewal was possible, these grants were successfully renewed—indicating that funders believed in CHF’s mission and implementation.
Our Funded Programs:
2005 to 2009
CHF operated the Spanish Center of Hanover, an outgrowth of Hempfield’s programs serving Latino at-risk youth in Adams County. One of Hempfield’s leadership staff, a resident in Hanover, began a volunteer center that now attracts over 100 participants on a weekend basis for information/referral, ESL classes, and translation. This defacto Spanish Center asked CHF to incorporate these activities under the CHF umbrella and nurture these efforts to maturity. In 2010, this organization obtained its own non-profit status and currently operates as an independent agency.
2012
CHF operated a grant from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency for Communities that Care in Snyder County. Communities That Care guides communities through a proven five-phase change process. Using prevention science as its base, CTC promotes healthy youth development, improves youth outcomes, and reduces problem behaviors.
2014
CHF operated grants from The Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency for Aggression Replacement Training in Dauphin County and the PAX Good Behavior Game in Snyder County. Aggression Replacement Training® is a cognitive behavioral intervention program to help children and adolescents improve social skill competence and moral reasoning, better manage anger, and reduce aggressive behavior. The program specifically targets chronically aggressive children and adolescents ages 12-17. PAX GBG is a set of strategies to help students learn important self-management skills while collaborating to make their classroom a peaceful and productive learning environment. The CHF received a two-year grant from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency for the Incredible Years Series, an evidence-based program that combines small-group therapy for behaviorally and emotionally dis-regulated children with parenting education.
2015
CHF operated a grant from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency for Communities that Care for Shikellamy School District. We are poised to accept continuation funding from PCCD for the CTC Coalition.
2016
We successfully applied for and received a continuation grant for the Shikellamy CTC through funding from Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency. Furthermore, we partnered with the Penn State Cooperative Extension to offer the PROSPER Program in the Shikellamy School District. The concept of adding PROSPER to a functioning CTC is fairly new and we were proud to be part of this experimental initiative. This year we operated a grant from PCCD for Promoting Alternative THinking Strategies (PATHS) at the Midd West School District, having been awarded a two-year grant from Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency in July 2016. PATHS is a comprehensive program for promoting emotional and social competencies and reducing aggression and behavior problems in elementary school-aged children while simultaneously enhancing the educational process in the classroom.
2017
We continued our work with the Shikellamy CTC this year as the coalition continued to work through the five phases of the model by completing the Risk and Protective Factor Report and Resource Assessment Report and started their training for the Community Strategic Plan. We are into year two of the PATHS Grant and serving teachers in grades 3-5 who received their training for the PATHS program. In November, Midd West School District was evaluated by a PATHS Master Trainer and Program Consultant for the PATHS Plus Program and was recommended as a PATHS Model School for exemplary implementation.
2018
In July, Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency awarded us with a two-year grant for Aggression Replacement Training for Steelton-Highspire and Mount Carmel Area School Districts for their middle school students.
2019
We were awarded a grant from The Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence (CSPV) at the University of Colorado Boulder for the implementation of Botvin LifeSkills Training (LST) for Midd-West School District. LifeSkills Training(LST) is a multi-component substance abuse prevention curriculum addressing social, psychological, cognitive, and attitudinal factors associated with the use of various legal and illegal substances. The grant will provide training and technical assistance, as well as curriculum materials, for the LifeSkills Training program for a period of three years, beginning in Fall 2019. During this year we also started to support the Airbnb efforts for the Inn at Red Tomato Farm.
2020
In the spring, we received a two-year grant from Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency to fund a new implementation of the Incredible Years program for Steelton-Highspire Elementary School-aged children.
2021
In early 2021, we received one year of grant funding from the Perry County Community Foundation to fund 20 Perry County teachers to provide lab experiences as an extension of their classroom that pertains to their content area, adhere to school district curriculum standards, and connect students with practical experiences. Opportunities to study math, science, art, and history for all grade levels and student populations are available in a real-world setting. The farm site will provide all students the opportunity for field experiences to foster career awareness to develop the following essential workplace skills; teamwork, problem-solving, and critical thinking.
2022
In late summer, we received one year of grant funding from the Perry County Community Foundation for a new art program at Stone House Farm in partnership with the Perry County Council of the Arts. This grant will fund eight artists as they create varying types of environmental art projects at the farm in which the community will be invited to also participate
Contact Us:
The David and Libby Rosen Center for Healthy Families (CHF)
Howard S. Rosen, PhD., Executive Director
2019 North 2nd Street Harrisburg, PA 17102
717-221-8004 (voice)
717.221-8006 (fax)
howardsrosenhbh@gmail.com
Our Mission: The David and Libby Rosen Center for Healthy Families promotes community health and wellness by focusing on families using programs that have impact, evidence showing effectiveness, and can be adapted to the situation using public-private partnerships that support the delivery of these high quality, research-proven programs.
David and Libby Rosen
Center for Healthy Families
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at Stone House Farm