Keystone Adolescent Center: 30 Years of Making a Difference in Kids’ Lives

A Q&A with Jim Gentile, Vice President & Director of Finance, and Ashlynn Reeder, CPA, MST, HBK Senior Manager

Looking to make a difference? Want to help a kid who really needs it? The directors and staff of Keystone Adolescent Center in Western Pennsylvania say, “Come join us.” Keystone, which has been helping at-risk adolescents since James Gentile opened the center in 1993, operates multiple facilities and programs, including shelters, but it is the staff and their approach to helping those kids, their empathy and how they impart accountability, that is their most important service.

Reeder. Give us some background on your history and community impact.

Gentile. Our dad opened the doors in 1993 as a 24-bed residential group home. Ever since we have been expanding in response to the needs of our community, including opening Pennsylvania’s first charter school. We provide 24-hour care and supervision for delinquent and dependent males and females from throughout Western Pennsylvania. We use a variety of treatment modules, focusing on the child’s history and future needs. In 1997, we opened up a 20-bed home for older kids coming into the program that focuses on transitional and independent living. As we recognized needs we developed programs to address them, including a specialized setting that addresses issues for boys and girls who have been the subjects of sex trafficking.

Our dad was a teacher and running a group home, then branched off to do it on his own. His vision not somewhere to live. worked with probably more than kids over the years, plus about 50 kids graduate each year from our charter school.” was to get kids on the right path to success. We now have 96 beds and 150 employees who live within 20-minute radius of our facility. All four of us sons work at the Center, and much of the staff has been with us for years, upwards of 20 years for some. That kind of consistency is important to helping these kids, who will be with us from three or four months to more than three years.

We originally dealt mostly with delinquents, though we’re not a secure unit so we don’t take dangerous kids that need a lockdown facility. Today we deal more with dependent youth, not charged with a crime but they need somewhere to live. We’ve worked with probably more than 30,000 kids over the years, plus about 50 kids graduate each year from our charter school.

We work well with the community, and the community with us. The churches do things like bring the kids Christmas presents, and kids in restitution work off their community service with local businesses.

Reeder. How do you raise funds?

Gentile. Most of our funding is through county contracts. All our kids are referred by court order. Of the 67 Pennsylvania counties, we have contracts with about 30, including every county in Western Pennsylvania. We do have one fundraiser a year for student activities, like clothes for school or for a nice outing.

Reeder. What are your biggest challenges?

Gentile. It’s tough to spend six to nine months building rapport with kids and helping them become independent and accountable, then see them go back to their families and regress. We try to get the family into therapy sessions, but sometimes that’s hard to do. It’s frustrating to see kids who’ve had such good influences regress. We have a lot of success stories, but also some unfortunate stories of kids struggling or not doing well.

Another concern is staffing. We need people who are good role models, good mentors for the kids. We train them on our model, but they have to be able to be a coach, a teacher, a counselor. You’re always learning but you have to have empathy. The people who work here get a lot of gratification they get from the job. Some have taken pay cuts to work here, and we’ve had staff leave and come back because they get so much gratification from making a difference in kids’ lives.

The staff does a lot for these kids, including sometimes taking some of their pay to buy them something. Like a birthday cake. Can you imagine a 16-year-old who never had a birthday cake? For some of these kids, their days at Keystone are some of the best times of their lives. They’re proud to live here, that this is their house.

Reeder. HBK is proud to serve as your accounting firm. How important is it to you to have an accounting firm with expertise and experience working with nonprofits?

Gentile. HBK has been our accounting firm from the beginning, for 30 years. Having them as our firm has been a feather in our cap. We look at the audit as a learning experience, how HBK is making us better. We were good at helping kids; now we do our finances well because of HBK. For more on Keystone, visit http://www. keystoneadolescentcenter.com.

“HBK has been our accounting firm from the beginning, for 30 years. Having them as our firm has been a feather in our cap. We look at the audit as a learning experience, how HBK is making us better.”

Keystone facilities and programs

• Keystone Adolescent Center is a 28bed shelter and residential facility for delinquent and dependent males.

• Keystone Female Services is a 24bed shelter and residential facility for delinquent and dependent females.

• Male Transitional Living is a 20-bed facility directed specifically towards male adolescents between 14 and 21 years of age.

• Female Transitional Living is a 9-bed supervised facility helping youth ages 14-21 in the areas of education, safe housing, life skills, and employment.

• Keystone Adolescent Center Foster Care Program provides a community-based family service delivery system that assists children referred after efforts to maintain the family unit have been exhausted.

• Keystone’s Community Based Family Intervention Program provides an intensive program for delinquent and dependent youth and their families, and is a collaborative effort consisting of partnerships with schools, county agencies, community organizations, and families.