Crossnore Communities for Children

Crossnore Communities for Children is a nonprofit child welfare and mental and behavioral health agency supporting children and families in crisis from North Carolina. 

For more than 100 years, Crossnore has been one of the most trusted names in child safety, protection, and welfare as a provider of holistic care, hope, and healing for children who have experienced trauma. Our promise to all children and families is to value and accept them wholly and to devote our exceptional resources to their needs. No organization is better positioned to give vulnerable families a broad-based ecosystem of support. 

Our trauma-informed continuum of services focuses on the unique challenges and needs of children and youth (ages birth to 21) and their families currently involved in the child welfare system, children and families at high-risk of entering the system, and teens and young adults aging out of the system (through the age of 26).

We are a recognized leader in helping children who have experienced abuse or other trauma reclaim, rebuild, and reimagine the essential belief in a safe, dependable home. Our holistic model of care allows us to care for and nurture each child’s mind, body and spirit.

Crossnore has three locations: 86 acres in the quaint Blue Ridge Mountain town of Crossnore, NC founded in 1913 by Drs. Eustace and Mary Martin Sloop, 212 rolling acres on the edge of downtown Winston-Salem, NC founded in 1909 by the Western Conference, United Methodist Church, and an office in the historic district of downtown Hendersonville, NC opened in 2018.

We meet our mission in these service areas: Foster Care & Adoptions, Family Preservation, Therapy Services, Youth Independent Living, and the Center for Trauma Resilient Communities.  

Therapy services are offered to children and families at all of our locations following a complete assessment to determine their needs. This assessment then drives the services that will best meet those needs. Therapy services are available through both outpatient and school-based therapy programs in Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Public Schools and Henderson County Public Schools.

Crossnore believes that children belong in their families of origin whenever possible.  To that end, Crossnore most recently launched Bridging Families© and Homebuilders® with the goals of safely keeping families together or reunifying them. Homebuilders® teams work closely with a family to remove the safety concern instead of removing the children from the home. Bridging Families© uses professional foster parents and a team of clinical and case management staff to support families of origin while their children are in foster care. Bridge Parents are full-time paid staff who work with both the children and parents to address needs in the family so that siblings can stay together through the process and families can eventually be reunified, whenever possible. 

Foster Care is offered to children who are not able to live safely in their own homes and who are in the custody of the Department of Social Services. Children who come into our care may live in a community-based foster home with a licensed foster family, in one of the cottages spread across our Avery and Winston-Salem campuses, or in one of our Bridging Families homes. Community-based foster families receive their training from Crossnore and then apply for their foster care license from the state of North Carolina. After licensure, Crossnore provides placement of children, supervision of families, and ongoing training in the form of a monthly support group for foster families. Our campus cottages are managed by cottage parents who are trained professional cottage parents who serve in a 7-day-on/7-day-off rotation. This relationship model helps our children learn to build healthy relationships while receiving the support they need to make progress towards reaching their own goals.

Adoption services are offered at Crossnore through the Child Welfare Division of the Department of Health & Human Services for families interested in providing permanency, safety, and love to a child or sibling group in need. Children of all ages need forever homes, particularly teens and sibling groups.

Youth Independent Living is designed to support youth who have experienced foster care during their critical transition into young adulthood. These youth may choose to attend a four-year university, community college, or enter the workforce immediately following high school. Youth in Transition offers financial literacy and peer counseling services, as well as education, housing, transportation, and career support for young adults up to the age of 26.

The Center for Trauma Resilient Communities (CTRC) opened in 2018 to help organizations embed and embody the science of trauma resilience.  CTRC works with organizations, churches, schools, healthcare, and others to move people from information to action.

Lila Riley is Crossnore's Regional Director of External Relations in the Metrolina region. Lila is responsible for building and managing community engagement, strengthening and developing new partnerships, leading fundraising efforts, and supporting business development opportunities for Crossnore Communities for Children and the Center for Trauma Resilient Communities.