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Foster Community Visit to Table Rock Fish Hatchery
2020 BYOP Committee
The full-time recreation therapy staff at our foster community ensure the children in our care are supported and nurtured through recreational activities.
Team building, personal growth, physical health and more are boosted through activity-based interventions and one-of-a-kind experiences provided by this talented team. Recently, our children visited the Table Rock Fish Hatchery, alongside participants from the Burke County 4-H H20 Camp, where they learned about water and the animals that live inside of its ecosystem.
Agency Receives Grant from Burke Youth Organized Philanthropists (BYOP)
2020 BYOP Committee
2020 BYOP Committee
The Burke Youth Organized Philanthropists (BYOP) recently awarded Southmountain Children and Family Services a $1,000 grant. The funds will be used to improve the safety and security of the Foster Community by installing a video surveillance system in the gymnasium.
BYOP exists to engage and empower youth through learning and serving to strengthen the community. BYOP is a group of high school students who work together to identify community needs and award grants to non-profits in Burke County. Southmountain is grateful to the BYOP for their continued support of our programs over the past several years!
Donations to support this project or the agency can be made securely online at southmountain.org/donate or mailed to: P.O. Box 3387, Morganton, North Carolina, 28680.
Southmountain Children and Family Services is a 501(c)3; donations are tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law.
Agency Receives Grant For Safety Equipment
Southmountain Children and Family Services has received a Janirve Sudden and Urgent Need Grant from the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina to help with security measures at its facilities.
The organization is in the process of increasing the safety and security at their Foster Community that provides residential services for children in out-of-home care as a result of abuse or neglect. The $10,000 grant will be used for the partial cost of surveillance cameras and recorders for nine group homes at the Foster Community.
Southmountain offers programs and services across North Carolina to support children and families impacted by abuse and neglect. The Foster Community is made up of nine group homes in a neighborhood setting. The agency’s parents are paid employees professionally trained to care for abused and neglected children.
“One of the great strengths of our program is the capability to serve sibling groups and to place them together within one home,” said Wendy Jodry, GCC project director for SMCFS.
Southmountain also operates 10 Children's Advocacy Centers, where child abuse investigations are done in collaboration with agencies involved in the investigation, including law enforcement, social services, and the district attorney’s office.
The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina’s mission is to inspire philanthropy and mobilize resources to enrich lives and communities in western North Carolina. Southmountain wishes to thank the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina for its generous support.
Donations to the project or the agency can be mailed to: P.O. Box 3387, Morganton, North Carolina, 28680. Southmountain is a 501(c)3, and all donations are tax-deductible.
Agency Welcomes New Staff Person
Southmountain Children and Family Services is pleased to welcome Beth Willard Patton to its staff as the Community Engagement Specialist. In this role, Patton will oversee the organization’s community presence and will lead its outreach program to achieve strategic marketing, communications, and public awareness goals. Beth joins the organization with more than 10-years of nonprofit experience.
Patton looks forward to serving Southmountain in a role that is new for the organization. Her enthusiasm for community outreach will include tasks such as growing the organization’s social media awareness and increasing the organization’s external communications.
“Southmountain Children and Family Services is an innovative organization whose impact can be felt across North Carolina,” said Patton. “I love connecting with people and I can’t wait to develop new and exciting ways to tell the story about the important work being accomplished by this amazing team of child advocates!”
“We are truly excited to have Beth as part of the Southmountain family,” says Chris Jernigan, Executive Director, Southmountain Children and Family Services. “She is well known for her tremendous talents in the areas of communications, public awareness, and fund development. Beth is just what we have needed to bring awareness to the incredible services and programs Southmountain Children and Family Services has developed over the last two decades.”
Raised in rural Maryland, Patton lives in Morganton with her husband and two children. The oldest of 5, she is devoted to child welfare issues and looks forward to bringing her passion for this work to Southmountain Children and Family Services. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration, Beth holds concentrations in marketing and accounting. She joins the Southmountain team with nearly 15 years of professional nonprofit experience.
Art Exhibit at Southmountain Estates
On March 26, 2021 a very special evening was held at our foster community, Southmountain Estates. An art exhibit, hosted by the children at the foster community, included some of the children’s accomplishments during this year. Each child displayed a self-portrait, an art piece of their choice and a Zentangle (beautiful images created by drawing structured patterns). The children also presented a biography stating who they are and anything else they wanted to share about themselves. The foster community's violin class and guitar classes also performed. Children who have been participating in theatre activities showed off some of their improv skills.
This black-tie event was organized by Bianca Moses, Director of Community Relations at the Morganton-based Outreach Center, along with Adam Scott, Recreation Director for Southmountain Children and Family Services. “The children I have worked with are exceptional, and I am so thankful for all the love that is being poured into them and having the opportunity to work with them,” expressed Ms. Moses.
This special evening, enjoyed by over 75 guests, included hors d'oeuvres and a jazz playlist while everyone celebrated the special accomplishments of our children!
Burke County Organization Has State-Wide Impact
A Burke County foster community and child advocacy organization is celebrating the opening of its 11th Children’s Advocacy Center in North Carolina.
The Ashe County CAC began operating in March and currently operates as a satellite office of the Blue Ridge CAC in Boone. It joins centers that service Burke, McDowell and 12 other rural counties.
A Children’s Advocacy Center is a coordinated child abuse response that brings multiple agencies together under one roof to provide abuse victims with the legal, medical and therapeutic support they need.
Southmountain Children and Family Services has been a fixture in Burke County for more than 85 years. Originally founded in 1913 as the Shortoff School, the organization was a specialized school for children ages 5 to 25 who didn’t have any other access to schooling. After the influenza pandemic of 1918, the school began expanding to include group home services for children who needed a place to live. By the 1930s, it had become a group home and relocated to its present location in Burke County.
For the next six decades, South Mountain operated as a group home.
“It was very dorm-style, cafeteria-style, very institutional,” Beth Willard-Patton, community engagement specialist for Southmountain, said. “They were housed in a way that was very typical at that time. The children would dig rocks from the local river, they did laundry, they did dishes and they cut fabric squares for the furniture industry. They learned but they also worked.”
According to Patton, there was a significant push to improve the living environment at Southmountain in the ’90s. This began the transition from a group home to a foster community. The new community opened in 2003.
“It is eight houses around the corner from the old rock building,” Patton said. “We have professional parents now who live in those houses. … They have kids that live in the houses with them. It’s 24/7 care.”
Patton called the foster community a hybrid between a traditional group setting and a foster care setting, saying that it offered children the best of both models.
“This model is really cool in that you get the benefits of a true foster family — children in a home with two parents,” Beth Bruder Dagenhart, children’s advocacy center program director for Southmountain, said. “You get that benefit, but you get all the support and the parts that come with group care like the therapy and all the other supports that come with it.”
Patton added that another benefit of the hybrid model is that siblings get to stay together, which does not always happen in a foster care setting.
The foster community consisted of eight single-family homes in a neighborhood-style setting with adjacent state-of-the-art facilities, including a gymnasium, alpine climbing tower, indoor pool, playground and miles of hiking trails.
According to Patton, one of the highlights of the program for children who live at Southmountain is the facility’s recreation program.
“We have an amazing rec program,” she said. “The activities that the kids are exposed to there are so unique and so beneficial and really speak to the dedication to children that our organization has.”
Patton said as part of the recreation program, children travel out into the community for fun outings as well as to participate in community service projects. That helps children who have experienced trauma to know they are still able to give back to the community, despite their adverse circumstances.
“Your situation might be dire, but that doesn’t mean you’re in this alone or that other people aren’t experiencing hard times, too,” she said.
Ultimately, Patton said the goal of the program is to provide the best possible care for children until they return to their biological parents or are adopted.
“We call this Journeys Home,” she said. “The goal is to get these kids back with their biological parents or adopted.”
At Southmountain, Journeys Home involves three components: reunification, adoption and independence. When possible, Southmountain works to reunify children with their biological parents. In situations where reunification is not possible, the agency supports adoption, helping to match adoptive parents with children and working with and supporting families during and after the adoption process.
“In either one of those cases, there is ongoing therapy that happens, either with the child and the adoptive family or with the child and their biological family to ensure that transition is supportive, positive and long-lasting,” Patton said.
Some children transition into adulthood while living at Southmountain. For these children, Southmountain works to prepare them for life as an independent adult.
In 1998, Southmountain added a child advocacy arm to its operations. A Children’s Advocacy Center is a comprehensive center that works with the Department of Social Services and law enforcement, providing legal, therapeutic and other forms of support to children who have been victims of abuse. Patton said the advocacy center was a natural outgrowth of the organization’s work with children in the foster care system.
“The care provided at the foster community shed light on the severe abuse and neglect children in Burke County were experiencing,” she said. “The Children’s Advocacy Center expanded the work of the organization beyond foster care.”
In recent years Southmountain has opened CACs in counties across North Carolina.
“Across the state we saw a need in other communities and had that expertise and were willing to take that on,” Patton said.
For information on Southmountain Children and Family Services or Children’s Advocacy Centers, visit southmountain.org.
Jason Koon, Staff Writer for the Morganton News Herald
Published April 15, 2022
Thank You Mull Foundation!
Southmountain Children and Family Services would like to thank the Mull Foundation for their generous grant of $2,000. The grant was used to purchase computers and printers for the staff of the new Journeys Home Program. The purpose of Journeys Home is to facilitate the successful reunification and adoption of children who live at Southmountain Estates, the Foster Care Community operated by Southmountain Children and Family Services.
Community Foundation of Burke County Awards Grant
Southmountain Children and Family Services has completed a major renovation project of homes at “Southmountain Estates” its unique Foster Community. The Community Foundation of Burke County has been an important and continued partner in renovations at Southmountain Estates, and has awarded two grants totaling $21,205 to remodel two kitchens and 11 bathrooms at the Foster Community. The homes were built in the mid 1990's and were in desperate need of repair after having housing hundreds of children over the last 25 years. Southmountain would like to express sincere appreciation to the Community Foundation of Burke County for their continued generosity and support.
Good Times for Teens at Southmountain Estates
With the official beginning of summer, our teens at Southmountain Estates have been staying healthy and active, exploring the vast natural resources of our local national forest and wilderness areas on weekly hikes to waterfalls. Thanks to the leadership of our Recreational Therapy interns, they are also participating in weekly creative/ expressive art projects. Our enthusiastic interns are also planning a summer bash to celebrate the end of their internships.
Our teens have also been enjoying weekly cooking classes, where they make a menu, creatively based on resources available in our food pantry, then prepare and share a delicious, nutritious meal together. As C.S. Lewis says, “The sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal.” It is a sweet opportunity to share stories and build enduring memories.
Professional Parents Are True Heroes!
Chris Jernigan, Executive Director, Janet Curtis, Chief Operating Officer, and the Board of Trustees of Southmountain Children and Family Services wish to recognize and honor all of the professional parents at our Foster Community. During the Covid-19 pandemic, these dedicated employees have continued to do their jobs all day every day without a break and without a minute of free time.
To protect the foster community from the potential spread of the virus and to comply with Governor Cooper's Stay at Home Order, Director Jernigan made the community completely off limits to anyone except those designated to deliver food and supplies. He also directed that no one could leave the community during this time. This means that the parents have been at home with their children without any outside face-to-face contact. They have had to cook all the meals (some of which typically would have been provided at school); monitor the children's on-line school classes and assist their children with daily schoolwork that normally would have been done at school; provide all of the recreation activities (even the recreation staff was disallowed from entering the community); and just about everything else you can imagine. These live-in parents have really stepped up to the plate without any hesitation. They are the TRUE HEROES of this time and we applaud and revere them.
We would like to publicly thank our parents from the bottom of our hearts for their tireless devotion during this trying time! Their dedication, love and care for our children have been proven beyond compare.
Southmountain Children and Family Services Receives Grant From Glass Foundation
Southmountain Children and Family Services is the proud recipient of a grant from the Glass Foundation, a private family foundation based in Asheville, North Carolina. This generous grant of $48,900 has been used to renovate bathrooms in the homes at the Foster Community in Western Burke County. The homes were built in the mid 1990's and were in desperate need of repair after having housed hundreds of children over the last 25 years. Southmountain would like to express our sincere appreciation to the Glass Foundation for their continued generosity and support.
Rhonda Robbins Gives Keynote Presentation!
Rhonda Robbins, Certified Facility Dog Handler and Forensic Interviewer for the Children's Advocacy Centers of Southmountain Children and Family Services was honored to give the Keynote Presentation at the 2019 7th Annual International Courthouse Dogs Conference in Seattle, Washington. Her presentation was titled “Building a Trauma Informed Community with Four Paws: Utilizing a Facility Dog in School and Community Programs.” As keynote speaker, the presentation highlighted the ways that using a Facility Dog can bridge positive relationships, while creating fun and educational programs in the community. Rhonda shared information about prevention programs that she facilitates including Personal Body Safety, Internet Safety; teaching children and adults the dangers of the internet and ways to keep children safe -a program partnership with McDowell County Sheriff's Office.
Rhonda also presented on developing intervention groups and small groups that are done in collaboration with local schools. These groups address Grief and Loss, Anger Management, Social Skills, and Divorce. Finally, Rhonda gave the presentation "Paws to Read with Leroy"; introducing reading programs to increase literacy skills for students presenting delays and/or assertiveness in reading.
Facility Dog Leroy IV is North Carolina's first and only Professionally Trained Certified Facility Dog, trained by Canine Companions for Independence. Leroy has been with Southmountain since 2019. Leroy assists children in court, Forensic Interviews and is an ambassador for many community events. We are so proud of Rhonda and Leroy for the great work that they do for children and families and for her presentations at this conference!
2019 Annual Agency Open House and Christmas Parade
This coming Saturday, December 7, 2019 from 1:45 - 5:00 p.m. Southmountain Children and Family Services will be hosting our Annual Christmas Parade and Open House. The Parade will begin at 2 p.m and the Open House will follow until 5:00 p.m. Open to the public, we welcome all community members to spend an afternoon at Southmountain Estates, our Foster Community located near Lake James. Come enjoy our parade followed by an open house of all of our family homes.
The address for Southmountain Estates is 7330 Myrtle Drive, Nebo, NC 28761.
The weather is currently forecasted with no problems - if there are any changes to scheduling, additional details will be posted upon the agency website.
HoHoHo!
2019 Night of Light Run
Night of Light Run
Southmountain Children and Family Services is honored to be a donation recipient this year for the First United Methodist Church, Morganton Night of Light Run. This event is scheduled for this coming Saturday, December 7th at 6:00 p.m. If you are interested in participating as a runner, the registration is ending very soon so be sure and register soon! Thanks so much to the First United Methodist Church for this honor!
For more information, visit:
https://runsignup.com/Race/NC/Morganton/NightofLight5KandFamilyFunRun
BYOP Youth Offer Continued Support to Southmountain!
The Burke Youth Organized Philanthropy group, also known as BYOP, has awarded a new grant to our Foster Community! This is the third grant awarded by BYOP, and this most recent gift was used for admission fees so the children in our care could enjoy fun and educational summer activities. Southmountain Children and Family Services is so grateful to these wonderful youth as they continue to support our children and families!
Civil Air Patrol Squadron of Hickory Visit Southmountain Estates
It was a distinct pleasure to have the young men and women of the Civil Air Patrol Squadron and their talented Commanders, Sergeants and families from Hickory, NC descend upon Southmountain Estates community! On May 24 and 25 they held an event with a perfect balance of playfulness, discipline, and good will.
The Civil Air Patrol organized a well-paced weekend of rocket-building, aerospace education, robotics, drill instruction, and joyful fellowship with 18 of our foster youth, among whom they found glad reception.
We at Southmountain are grateful to Mark Emaus, Andy Meranda, Cindy Randolph, Adam Roig, Brenda Barnes, and the other staff leaders for their generous invitation to participate in this quality event with their cadets. We look forward to similar opportunities in the future! The NC-124 Civil Air Patrol Squadron is an impressive and inspiring group of young people well on their way to making this world a better place. We are blessed to count you as allies. Keep doing what you’re doing!
Lily’s Place Hosts Poster Contest for Child Abuse Prevention Month
During the month of April, the McDowell County Child Advocacy Center (Lily’s Place) sponsored its Annual 4th Grade Poster Contest in honor of Child Abuse Prevention Month. This year’s theme was “Every Child Matters!” and there were over 300 entries from several elementary schools including West Marion, Marion, Glenwood, Eastfield, Pleasant Gardens, and North Cove Elementary. District Attorney Ted Bell generously donated 2 bicycles and helmets to our grand prize winners from North Cove Elementary and Glenwood Elementary. The winners were thrilled to receive new bikes as their prize!
Camp Lake James Hosts 3rd Annual School's Out Celebration!
On Friday, June 8th the children from Southmountain Estates enjoyed the annual School's Out Celebration held at Camp Lake James. Camp Lake James staff and members from 1780 and the Old Wildlife Club sponsored a fun afternoon of activities and lunch for the children, professional parents and staff. The pool was full of laughter and the beach at the lake was buzzing with kayaking, swimming and paddle boarding.
While Camp Lake James staff and member volunteers engaged and supervised the children, professional parents and staff were treated to a much deserved "time out" to relax and enjoy conversation. One of the volunteers who has been actively involved with the Friends of Southmountain (volunteers from 1780 and the Old Wildlife Club) since its inception three years ago, commented on how encouraged he was to see the comfort level that has grown between the children, parents, and staff of Southmountain and the 1780/Old Wildlife Club Community. This relationship has grown into a true community.
Southmountain Receives Grant from Marion Business Association
In April 2019, Southmountain Children and Family Services received the good news that a grant to the Marion Business Association has been approved. The grant for $3,280 will be used to paint the exterior of the building that now houses Lily’s Place, the McDowell County Children’s Advocacy Center. Southmountain extends our gratitude to the Marion Business Association for this grant!
Southmountain Staff Teach Student Safety
Community outreach and prevention are important parts of Southmountain Children and Family Services’ mission, and community education about child abuse is an important way to meet that goal. Recently Rhonda Robbins, facility dog specialist with Southmountain Children and Family Services, partnered with McDowell County Sheriff Office Detective Paul Alkire to provide education on Internet Safety to West McDowell Middle School students and their parents. Detective Alkire, Cyber Crimes Investigator, provided tips and instruction on how to monitor internet and cell phone use; how to keep kids safe from on-line predators; and information on cyber-bullying. This program will be incorporated into 6th grade orientation for both students and parents starting this spring. The McDowell County Children’s Advocacy Center (Lily's Place) has also been offering a "Personal Body Safety" Program in McDowell County Elementary Schools for over five years. This program uses grade specific, age appropriate language to empower students to tell a trusted adult if someone makes them feel uncomfortable or touches them in an inappropriate way.