News

Pennsylvania Bankers Association (PA Bankers), the commonwealth’s leading financial services trade association, today announces Nell McCormack Abom as vice president of marketing and communications, effective Feb. 25, 2019. Abom brings more than 30 years of expertise in communications, marketing, journalism, media relations and public affairs to PA Bankers.

“We are thrilled to have Nell join our PA Bankers team.

Hundreds of women at the Women in Banking conference donated new and gently used shoes and purses to charity.

Put on by the Pennsylvania Banker’s Association, more than 350 women attended the sixth annual conference at the Hershey Lodge and Convention Center.

The purses and shoes will go to the Dress for Success of South Central Pennsylvania.

The start of a new year usually brings a bit of reminiscing about the year just passed and looking forward to goals, wishes, plans, and special events in the year ahead. PFSA celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, and I realize I have spent the past 25 of those 40 years as the organization’s president and CEO.

By Kayla E. Kressler, For the Inquirer

One evening during the blizzard of 1993, my biological mother surrendered me to the lifelong care of my maternal grandmother. I was 5 years old.  She packed a bag, bundled me in layers, and walked me out the front door — instructing me to wait until someone came to pick me up.

By Christopher Huffaker – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

In response to the opioid epidemic, the Pennsylvania Senate unanimously passed a House bill Tuesday that grants temporary guardianship in 90-day increments, up to one year, to grandparents or other family members when the parents of children are unable to raise them.

State Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski, D-Luzerne, the bill’s lead sponsor, said in a news release, “I’m thankful that grandparents will now have legal rights when they step up to the plate and take over primary care for their grandchildren when the parents are not in the picture.”

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During a tour Thursday of a High Steel Structures plant in East Lampeter Township, Gov. Tom Wolf defined his plans to strengthen Pennsylvania’s workforce and highlighted the private company’s efforts toward educating the state’s labor pool.

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Parental opioid/heroin use poses a life-threatening risk to children.

Angela M. Liddle, MPA, President and CEO of Pennsylvania Family Support Alliance, the state leader in child protection, issued the following statement in response to the PA Department of Human Services’ 2017 Annual Child Protective Services Report. The report found that 40 children died due to child abuse in Pennsylvania in 2017 and 88 children nearly died of abuse.

The Greene County Family Center is part of a statewide pilot program aimed at helping parents who are dealing with addiction to balance that struggle with their obligations to their families.

The center began offering the seven-week Families in Recovery class Jan. 8, with a new one to start Feb. 26. The curriculum, which was first used last fall at the Hamilton Health Center in Harrisburg, was developed by the Pennsylvania Family Support Alliance, a statewide nonprofit that works to prevent child abuse and neglect.

Sonya Perez-Palmer’s grandchildren will push her buttons until they find the detonator.

There was a time when the grandmother of seven was quick to explode, but now she defuses the situation by pulling out her journal and writing down her thoughts.

It’s a coping mechanism she learned in the Farrell Family Center’s Families in Recovery Program — a seven-week program developed by PA Family Support Alliance aimed to help parents overcome addiction, and rebuild and strengthen relationships within the family.

 By Chelsea Koerbler – Fox 43

Some family centers across the Commonwealth began training for a new pilot program Thursday. The program, offered by Pennsylvania Family Support Alliance, will help families in recovery.

“I want to give them a chance to become a family again.”

Substance use disorder can tear a family apart, and up until now there wasn’t a program offered statewide that could help recovering addicts learn how to pick up the broken pieces of their families.