About Us
Our mission: Buxmont Academy and Community Service Foundation (CSF) are dedicated to providing education, counseling, foster care and other services to help young people and their families to grow and change through restorative practices.
Buxmont Academy and CSF provide programs for troubled and at-risk youth in eastern Pennsylvania. Our students and clients are boys and girls, grades 7 to 12, struggling with a wide range of behavioral and emotional problems, including: learning difficulties, drug and alcohol abuse, legal problems, family problems, impulsive or aggressive behavior, lack of self-esteem, mental health issues, ADD/ADHD, oppositional defiance disorder, sexual, physical or emotional abuse, truancy, school suspensions and expulsions. CSF Buxmont operates six school campuses, as well as several community based foster homes and other programs.
Our Philosophy
Our approach to working with youth is based on restorative practices, which helps students learn and grow behaviorally and emotionally as well as academically. Counseling focuses on helping teens take responsibility for their choices and behavior. Emphasis is on supporting personal growth and change, balanced with structure and accountability. The staff maintains communication with parents and professionals so that all of the adults in the teenager’s life are cooperating in support of the same goals.
Restorative practices is an emerging social science which maintains that people are happier, more cooperative and productive, and more likely to make positive changes in their behavior when those in positions of authority do things with them, rather than to them or for them.
Licensures
Buxmont Academy schools are licensed by the Pennsylvania Department of Education:
- as private academic schools for middle level grades 7–8 and secondary grades 9–12
- for special education grades 7–12
Buxmont Academy is an approved private alternative education institution.
Buxmont Academy is an approved out-of-state private school for the disabled (emotionally disturbed and socially maladjusted) for the state of New Jersey.
Community Service Foundation is licensed by the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare:
- for day treatment with adolescents
- as a foster family care agency
- as a private children and youth agency
Community Service Foundation day treatment centers are licensed by the Pennsylvania Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs to provide drug-free outpatient and drug-free partial hospitalization services.
History
Community Service Foundation (CSF), a nonprofit corporation founded in 1977 by two Pennsylvania educators, Ted and Susan Wachtel, opened its first alternative school/day treatment program in Sellersville, Pennsylvania.
In the early 1980s CSF was 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 1996 Buxmont Academy became an independent nonprofit corporation that collaborates with CSF in providing education and counseling services to struggling teens. Buxmont Academy serves the growing number of students referred directly from public schools and parents.
In 2006 the International Institute for Restorative Practices (IIRP), which grew out of the practice and philosophy of CSF Buxmont, was approved as a graduate school by the Pennsylvania Department of Education. In 2011 the IIRP was accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. CSF Buxmont now serve as model programs for the IIRP.
