We do so much together! Impact Report 2024-25 Highlights

It is kind of amazing. When you stop and look at it either way, as a big picture (what we’ve done over the past year), or homing in on really almost any given day, exceptional service and care is being delivered by the COBYS community.
This past year our 89 staff members continued our focus on trauma-informed care with best practices training to address the increasingly complex needs of children and youth in foster care and children, youth and adults in the community. We provide foster care in Lancaster, Berks, Cumberland, Dauphin, Lebanon, Schuylkill and York counties.
The COBYS community delivers care in situations that are sometimes challenging, messy and often heartbreaking. But the work we do is necessary and honorable and can be life-altering. In fulfilling our mission, that motivated by Christian faith, we educate, support and empower children and adults to reach their full potential, the care we provide can even be joyful.
These excerpts from the annual impact report provides a snapshot of our care during the past fiscal year (July 1,2024 – June 30, 2025).    Read Full Impact Report    

Adoption

The COBYS Adoption unit provides services that assist children and families during the foster care process, in finalization of adoptions and in the life-long journey for families who have experienced adoption.
Our adoption staff work with some foster and adoptive families approved through COBYS, but also provide services for many additional children placed in foster homes licensed through counties and those already adopted and in kinship placements.

The following units of service were provided in the past fiscal year:
• 58 Child Preparations
• 17 Adoption Finalizations
• 20 Families assessed for Post Adoption Services
To date 697 adoptions have been finalized by COBYS.

 

Family Life Education

The Blues Program increased its number of training courses for mental health practitioners for teens by 42%, from 26 to 37 during this fiscal year. The Blues Program was also added as an approved resource for schools in Texas and California, allowing COBYS to train several practitioners from these states.

FLE statistics for the past fiscal year:
• 999 classroom hours including 703 hours for FLE courses and 296 hours for Blues Program training
• 670 adults attending FLE classes, representing over 856 children
• 330 Blues Program practitioner trainees, representing hundreds of children
• 111 courses held, including 74 FLE and 37 Blues trainings.

 

Foster Care

Our Foster Care team ensures that children are safe and supported while in care. COBYS foster families provide temporary care until a child can reunify with a birth parent or extended family. Foster families sometimes adopt a foster child if the court determines that the child cannot return home. COBYS continues increased foster family recruitment efforts due to on-going national and local shortages of foster parents.

Foster Care statistics for the past fiscal year:
• 18,161 days of care to 103 children, with 53 children placed in last year
• 12 foster children in our care were adopted, while 44 were discharged to other places including seven moving to kinship family placements.
• 83 foster families served, including 19 newly licensed foster families. We license families for both traditional foster care and kinship care.
• COBYS families are a diverse group, including individuals and married couples ranging from 25 to 68 years of age. Two thirds of our families also have biological or adopted children living in the home.

 

Counseling

In January 2025, the COBYS Counseling Center moved from its Leola, PA location into our main office at 444 Murry Hill Circle in Lancaster. This move provides a refreshed space for service delivery and allows therapists to further integrate with staff in foster care, adoption and family life education services, strengthening continuity of care for many clients.

During the past fiscal year, Counseling provided and engaged in:
• 5,154 counseling sessions held
• 121 new clients served
• 132 successful discharges

 

Permanency

This year, one trend the Permanency Unit saw with five cases was the return of children to foster care after previously being reunified with their parents. Re-entry occurred due to parents recurring drug use. Additionally, our staff is managing cases of adolescents with complex mental health needs that exceed the level of care foster homes can provide. As a result, it is challenging to secure appropriate group or mental health facility placements within Lancaster County to meet their needs, with many youth being placed outside the County where the necessary facilities are located. At the end of the fiscal year, 14 youth in our care were placed out of Lancaster County — including one as far away as Tennessee — due to the complexity of their mental health and treatment needs.

2024-2025 statistics:
• Permanency worked with 108 children from 73 families
• 16 children were reunified from 11 families
• Eight children from five families were transferred to adoption

 

Financial Support

This year saw engagement with and generosity from our supporters, while we actively sought out new connections to keep our financial foundation strong. We organized visits to seven congregations and enjoyed connecting directly with individuals and families throughout the region. We met with many of our closest supporters through personal visits and critical fundraising events such as our Dinner & Conversation and The Bike & Hike. We welcome visits and calls with individual donors where we can provide personalized updates on your support of our critical care and express our sincere gratitude for the difference each individual, family or business really does make in our care.
While there was a decrease in yearly giving, we are actively pursuing new connections and donors with highlights at local shops, participating in community events like the Lancaster Open Streets Festival and digital advertising across the region. To start a conversation about your connection to COBYS, please contact Anne Stokes, director of development & communications, at anne@cobys.org or 717-656-6580 x101.

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