NORTH WHITEHALL TWP., Pa. – A nonprofit that provides behavioral and mental health services for children and families is shrinking its footprint outside of Pennsylvania.
KidsPeace, which was founded in the Lehigh Valley nearly 150 years ago, has announced it will close its residential treatment program in Bowdon, Georgia, and cease operations in the state by the end of 2026.
In a news release, KidsPeace cited “significant and sustained financial pressures associated with providing residential mental and behavioral healthcare” as the reason for the change.
“For years, reimbursement rates for services provided at Bowdon have not kept pace with the rising costs and increasing complexity of care, creating a financial gap that KidsPeace determined was no longer sustainable,” the news release says.
“We have worked alongside our community partners to make state leaders aware of the growing disparity and the impact it has on our ability to sustain these services,” KidsPeace President and CEO Michael Slack said, in the release. “We explored operational efficiencies, alternative service models and other options that would allow us to remain in Georgia. Unfortunately, we could not identify a financially sustainable path forward. Reaching this decision is painful, but it is necessary to protect the long-term strength of KidsPeace and our ability to continue delivering our mission in the communities we serve.”
KidsPeace opened its Bowdon program in 2004 to provide residential treatment and support for kids ages 12 to 17 with significant mental and behavioral health needs. The facility is currently licensed for 80 beds and employs approximately 100 people, KidsPeace said.
The Bowdon facility is one of three residential treatment locations operated by KidsPeace. The others are in Ellsworth, Maine, and at KidsPeace’s Orchard Hills Campus in North Whitehall Township.
According to its company history, KidsPeace got its start in 1882 as an orphanage for children who lost their parents to a smallpox epidemic in the Lehigh Valley. William Thurston, president of Bethlehem Iron (later Steel) Company, was joined in the effort by Julia DeWitt Coppee, the wife of the first president of Lehigh University.
In 1886 the Thurston Home was renamed The Children’s Home of South Bethlehem.
A new children’s home- later dubbed the Wiley House- opened about a decade later in the newly incorporated borough of Fountain Hill.
Following many years of growth and expansion of services, Wiley House changed its name to KidsPeace in 1992. By then, it had expanded to the brand-new Orchard Hills Campus in North Whitehall, the site of a former fruit orchard.
Currently, in addition to its residential locations, KidsPeace also offers outpatient and community programs and foster care services at its Broadway Campus in Fountain Hill, as well as acute partial hospitalization and community-based programming at its Berks Campus in Muhlenberg Township.