169: Jill Troutman

Vice President, Children’s Home of Reading

Jill Troutman is the Vice President of advancement, marketing, and communications at the Children’s Home of Reading (CHOR). CHOR has served the youth of Reading for the last 130 years, and has three residential programs for children suffering from trauma, as well as providing education, foster care, and other services for children in the community.

The staff pivoted to online platforms to provide services to children as soon as they could. However, their technology infrastructure was severely outdated and required a hundred thousand dollar investment immediately. Getting computers to children being served at home was a huge challenge, especially with households using multiple different access platforms and with the added concern of maintaining online confidentiality and secure connections. 

Residential and foster care children were greatly affected, as staff were unable to safely conduct home visits. It took 15 months to resume visits in person, until then they  had to be done virtually or via phone. The staff of CHOR was kept busy delivering personal protection, school supplies, and computers to homes, dropping the packages off on front door steps. Jill is so proud of the CHOR team who worked non stop to meet the needs of the community. 

One tragedy that Jill noted is that child abuse cases rose during the pandemic, and fewer families were able to provide foster care due to the complications inherint to online schooling in working households. Jill fears there will be a major influx into the children and youth system as society comes out of isolation, given the higher incidence reports of alcoholism, drug use, and abuse in the home during the pandemic, as well as  increased mental health problems for kids with suicidal ideation.   

Personally, Jill also greatly worried about her family. Her parents were isolated  and her adult kids are essential workers. She felt terrible not being able to see them in person, especially when her daughter-in-law's mother was found dead from Covid. Jill felt lucky to be able to work from home and use that time to become even closer to her husband. She is so proud of the work CHOR does and the staff who continued to work at great personal risk during the pandemic to serve the children of Reading.