One in eight children experiences trauma growing up. One of every three audience members at a recent conference admitted having some sort of trauma at a young age, and it doesn't always have to involve parental drug use.

“This partnership with Children’s Law Center allows youth to receive streamlined reentry services, making what they need to succeed easily accessible and as a result, improving their outcomes, “said Gregory Bingham, Director of Lighthouse’s Hamilton County Community Juvenile Justice Services. ”Working together, we can support young people returning to our community in the best ways possible.”

Innovations are the foundation of our plan as we shift from multiple programs that serve youth to a data-driven system with a common vision and shared goals. This final plan will become a road map to the work we must do in order to end youth homelessness. Ending youth homelessness is not an easy task, but it is possible.

More than 3,500 children were in protective services custody at the end of 2017 -- with 1,518 of them entering the system in that year alone, according to Hamilton County Job and Family Services. The agency says the number of children in custody and available for adoption has doubled, with 400 kids waiting for a new family on any given day in the county. The numbers are the highest the agency has seen in nearly two decades.