HISTORY OF ORGANIZATIONS

The Community Service Foundation (CSF), a nonprofit corporation, was founded in 1977 by two Pennsylvania educators, Ted and Susan Wachtel.

CSF soon opened its first school in Sellersville and a second school in Trevose in 1984, both serving struggling teens in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

In the early 1980s CSF served as the sponsoring agency for TOUGHLOVE® which established parent support groups throughout North America and overseas. Ted Wachtel co-authored the best-selling TOUGHLOVE books.

In 1987 CSF opened a third school in Allentown (which eventually moved to its current site in Bethlehem) to serve troubled young people from Lehigh and Northampton counties. In the same year CSF opened its first foster group home near Doylestown.

In 1990 CSF added the Intensive Program, which serves youth returning from residential and other intensive drug and alcohol treatment. CSF also developed two group homes and a fourth school to serve youth in Montgomery County, eventually moving that school to Lansdale.

In 1994 CSF started an international program called Real Justice, which advocates conferencing and other restorative practices, a new way of responding to crime and wrongdoing. Conferencing brings together victims, offenders and their respective friends and family members to deal with the emotional consequences of wrongdoing and crime and, to the extent that is possible, repair the harm that has resulted.

In 1996 Buxmont Academy, CSF's academic school, became an independent nonprofit corporation that collaborates with CSF in providing services to struggling teens. Buxmont Academy now serves the growing number of students referred directly from public schools and parents.

CSF added its Home and Community Supervision program in 1996, a fifth school in 1997 in Feasterville, a sixth school in 2000 in Upper Providence, a seventh and eighth school in 2003 in Woodlyn and Pottstown, and by 2003 CSF was operating 16 foster group homes. In 2003 CSF opened CSF of Hungary, which offers training and consulting services in Central Europe and conducted a two-year pilot demonstration project of a restorative practices school in Budapest.

In 1999 CSF launched the SaferSanerSchools™ program to train educators to more effectively deal with difficult students in public, private and special education school settings and founded the International Institute for Restorative Practices to provide education and research about restorative approaches to family, community, school and workplace problems. The IIRP became a graduate school, approved by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, in 2006.

In 2005 CSF began its Conferencing Services program, offering the facilitation of restorative conferences and family group decision making conferences, effective strategies for engaging young people and their families in taking responsibility, making changes and solving problems.