National Youth Advocate Program President Names Renee Ellenberger Executive Director
Columbus, OH (PRWEB) April 14, 2014 -- Effective immediately, Renee Ellenberger will begin her role as Executive Director in West Virginia where she is responsible for leading and directing services her staff is providing to youth and their families. Renee will also continue her role as Director of Foster Care for the organization, which has approximately over 1000 foster parents in seven states.
NYAP Inc. is one of several agencies providing care to a significant share of the children and youth in need of out-of-home care and continues to support plans to improve adoption and family foster care services in West Virginia. NYAP has been providing programs services to West Virginia families and communities since the early 1980s and as the needs of families have evolved so has NYAP’s approach.
“At NYAP, we’re always asking ourselves how do we provide more relevant and more effective services to families,” said Ellenberger. “We’re very much a human services agency now. In addition, we work with foster parents to assure high quality substitute care but we work with biological and adoptive families to become better parents—and that helps communities flourish.”
NYAP’s therapy program in West Virginia is called ‘Thrive’ and offers a good example of Ellenberger’s perspective. The Thrive program offers mental health care and is designed to support the organizations mission to prevent placement outside of the home whenever possible and to reunify separated families as soon as its safe to do so. To achieve this NYAP are working with parents to make sure they have access to quality therapy services as a part of their reunification.
Ellenberger has a wealth of management experience after many years in social work and says NYAP’s mission, philosophy and commitment to excellence is what keeps her going. Renee obtained her Master of Social Work degree from West Virginia University and is licensed in both West Virginia and Ohio. She is active on a number of state committees. "Renee is a seasoned professional who is well-versed in all aspects of service delivery to children and families. Her promotion to Executive Director demonstrates the confidence we have in her to help us shape the future of programming in West Virginia, said NYAP's CEO, Marvena Twigg.
National Youth Advocate Program, a non profit 501 c (3) organization founded in 1978 by Dr. Mubarak Awad. The National Youth Advocate Program provides a wide array of services to youth and families in Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana, Illinois, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Services include: Counseling, Therapy, Drug and Alcohol Assessment, Home-Based Services, Mentoring, Parent Advocacy, Shelter Care, Treatment Foster Care, Independent Living, Respite Care, Positive Adolescent Sexuality Services (PASS), Constant and Never Ending Improvement (CANEI) and Care Management. For more information visit http://www.nyap.org or call 877-692-7226.
Contact:
F. Edward Sparks, Executive Vice President
1801 Watermark Drive, Suite 200
Columbus, Ohio 43215
(614) 487-8758 ext. 3824
888-688-9964
esparks(at)nyap(dot)org
Edward Sparks, National Youth Advocate Program, http://www.nyap.org, +1 (614) 487-8758 Ext: 3824, [email protected]
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