Patrick Henry Family Services, Inc. (PHFS) is celebrating the 60th anniversary of its founding in 1961.

Patrick Henry Family Services is sixty years old but has achieved considerable growth in recent years. Within the last ten years, PHFS has made significant progress in serving communities, providing additional resources, and most importantly serving not only children, but families as a whole.

CEO of PHFS, Robert Day, said, “The institution is sixty years old, but the movement is one year old. We’ve reset the clock. We have the energy of youth in this movement.”

Within the last 10 years their focus has changed tremendously. PHFS is serving more families and children than ever before, and they invite you to celebrate some of their accomplishments with them:

A total shift in focus of service: from trying to treat and fix broken families to working to prevent families and their children from the powerfully negative impacts of trauma.

Dramatic growth in numbers of children and families served within the last 10 years, from an estimated 200 to 300 (including those in counseling) to now well over 1,500 across all our services.

Serving children and families in 15 counties.

Significant growth in services offered to meet kids and families where they live, from one service in 1961 to now more than ten.

“We have retooled our services to be much more prevention focused, volunteer-driven and trauma informed with helping at-risk children and their families,” said COO of PHFS Jeff Nitz.

With this recently developed prevention and family-focused movement, PHFS hopes to expand even further into the lives of South-Central VA’s families throughout our next 10 years. The movement, as Day mentioned, is young, but “the institution is at a stage where it has matured. It’s wiser and has resources.”

Integral to this future success are Vision 30 and CarePortal, a ministry and a tool that PHFS partners with to make the mission of each component a reality. Vision 30 is a 10-year initiative with a goal to see every child in South-Central Virginia safe in their own family, or in another setting with caregivers supported by a local faith community by Dec. 31, 1930.

Kevin Cloran, Director of Community Care at Bedrock Community Church in Bedford, explains CarePortal as a tool that provides people with the opportunity to see the needs of their community and meet those needs as immediately as they can. It’s an online community available through an app where churches, organizations, and individuals can connect with one another to care for those who need it. Through these partnerships, “PHFS is attempting to bring agencies and churches in Central Virginia together in a collaborative way to exponentially impact the lives of individuals and families in crisis,” he said.

So, why does PHFS do what they do? In the words of Claudia Fletcher, CPO, “we believe that the church is called to take care of orphans and vulnerable children, and our job is to come alongside them to accomplish that.”

Day expressed the following: “We are so grateful for and proud of where we’ve come from, and we’re even more excited about where we’re going. We’d like to thank everyone in the PHFS community for your hard work, commitment, creativity, and passion that have made our growth possible. We could not do what we do without you, and we look forward to what we will accomplish together in light of this new family-focused movement.”

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