Advocates for the statewide Childhood Begins at Home coalition in Allegheny County are pressing forward on a mission to ensure support for children and low-income families — one home visit at a time.

Lyndsey Kramer said she is forever grateful to the Parents as Teachers program, which helped her get sober, learn fundamental parenting and gain a career.

Last week, we broke the exclusive story about former foster kids using their experiences to create a permanency toolkit for child welfare professionals. The goal is to increase the number of kids who find a permanent home once they exit the system.

Advocates of early education programs are urging legislators to support Gov. Tom Wolf’s $50 million increase to provide publicly funded pre-K programs to an additional 5,500 children in 2019-20.

Nearly half of Pennsylvania’s teenagers in foster care age out of the system each year. That means they’re sent out in the real world without being reunited with their biological family, or connected with a new permanent one.