Latest news with #Newland
Business Insider
6 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
A founder said her $200 million newsletter empire had over a million subscribers. Her own records tell a different story.
Daniella Pierson is a proponent of faking it till you make it. The 30-year-old founder of The Newsette Media Group, known for its daily newsletter about style and pop culture, says it's been key to her trajectory: a $9 million SoHo apartment, a net worth reported to be $220 million, and mentors like Serena Williams and Diane von Furstenberg. "I faked it till I made it," she told a Stanford Business School audience in 2024, recalling that she pretended to be an intern when her company was a one-woman affair to drum up interest and used made-up names when communicating with partners. A Business Insider investigation into Pierson's enterprise reveals that pretending to be her own intern may not have been her only distortion of reality. A review of internal documents and dashboards, recordings of meetings, and interviews with more than 10 company insiders uncovered questions about what Pierson has told the public and advertisers about her business when compared with what her own records show — including how many subscribers her newsletter has. A spokesperson for Pierson confirmed to Business Insider that The Newsette's daily newsletter goes out to about 500,000 subscribers each day. That's less than half the 1.3 million subscribers claimed in a 2025 pitch deck to advertisers and the million-plus referenced by Pierson in multiple public appearances. The spokesperson said that the larger figure reflects the company's overall email list, which includes what they described as "disengaged subscribers" who have been "funneled out" of the daily newsletter by a quality control mechanism. In a statement sent to Business Insider and posted on Instagram, Pierson called criticism of her business a "smear campaign," and said claims involve "false statements and fabricated information" meant to hamper her ability to continue supporting women through her companies. "They messed with the wrong person," she wrote. Pierson has touted The Newsette Media Group's 2021 revenue — $40 million, according to both Pierson and former employees — in public appearances as recently as last year. She's never publicly revealed revenue figures for subsequent years. Company documents seen by Business Insider paint a less rosy picture for last year: The company's 2024 revenue goal was $5 million. The Pierson spokesperson said this number was not accurate but declined to provide further information. They added that the company is currently profitable. Part of the revenue decline can be attributed to the 2023 shuttering of Newland, the creative agency that Pierson launched in late 2020 as part of The Newsette Media Group. She said Newland drove more revenue than the newsletter business itself in 2021. The Newsette Media Group now employs eight people, down from 40 at its peak, the Pierson spokesperson said. Pierson's business, by multiple measures, has fallen from its heights. It's a problem she's familiar with. In a 2024 TEDx Talk, Pierson spoke about "all of the billionaire guys" who had raised capital and whose companies were now "worth zero." "People don't realize, you have $1 billion on paper, that paper can burn real fast," she said. Over the past decade, Pierson has perfected her founder narrative. An identical twin, Pierson struggled in school and was labeled, in her own telling, "the dumb twin." When she got to Boston University, she said inmultiple podcast interviews, she floundered in school, uninspired by learning about the Earth's crust and how to properly measure the area of a triangle. She decided to focus on what she did like — magazines — and founded The Newsette as a newsletter during her sophomore year at the age of 19. Every morning, she'd wake up at 5 a.m. and spend five hours drafting a newsletter for her subscribers. During class, she DM-ed people on Facebook, telling them that if they brought on new subscribers, they could add "Newsette ambassador" to their résumés. "When I started in 2015, there weren't any newsletters out there," she'd later tell the audience at Stanford. (Prominent launches of newsletters with a similar flair included The Skimm in 2012 and Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop in 2008.) Once she graduated and had hammered out the product details, she couldn't find investors. Instead, she took a $15,000 loan from her parents. She's said she has since repaid the loan and has posted on Instagram that she "made her mom a millionaire" by giving her a stake in Newsette Media Group. Without venture backing, she had to be profitable right away, she said, so she began selling ads, making $25,000 in her first month of accepting advertisers in 2017. Pierson was successful in attracting press attention, at first from small college-targeted outlets and her hometown station, later from outlets including Elle, WWD, and Business Insider. The interviews were peppered with her catch-phrases: The Newsette was a "gift in your inbox," she often said, and at the beginning, she had three employees, "me, myself, and I." In 2019, a meeting with von Furstenberg, whom Pierson calls her fairy godmother, resulted in a partnership with the fashion designer: a publication called the Weekly Wrap, which Pierson said on the "Money Rehab" podcast was one of her big breaks. In early December 2019, she appeared on Forbes' 30 Under 30 list, saying The Newsette had grown to 500,000 subscribers. Revenue, Pierson said in a number of interviews, shot from $1 million in 2019 to $7 million in 2020 to $40 million — $10 million of it profit — in 2021. She said that revenue and the company's 500,000-plus subscribers allowed her to sell a 1.25% stake in the company at a $200 million valuation. The Pierson spokesperson declined to say who the investor was. Based on The Newsette Media Group's valuation and her stake in Wondermind, a mental-health startup she had cofounded with Selena Gomez and Gomez's mom, Forbes reported she was worth $220 million in August 2022. That made her the youngest, wealthiest self-made BIPOC woman in America, according to the magazine, a title she repeats with gusto. An examination of company documents shows a growing gap between the subscriber numbers Pierson gave publicly and what was on the books. On August 10, 2022, the day the Forbes story came out touting more than half a million subscribers, The Newsette had 411,000, according to documentation reviewed by Business Insider. In a 2023 interview with Forbes, she said it was on track to reach 1 million subscribers by the end of the year. According to company documentation, The Newsette had no more than 570,000 subscribers that year. At the 2024 Stanford talk, she said she had hit the 1 million mark; the records say The Newsette had fallen below 500,000. She repeated those numbers to advertisers. A pitch deck used earlier this year claims that The Newsette has "1.3 million+ subscribers" who receive its weekday, Saturday, and Sunday editions. A spokesperson for Pierson told Business Insider that there are 1.2 million emails in the company's total contact list — including people who no longer receive the newsletter regularly — and said the daily edition currently goes out to about 500,000 active subscribers. Jacob Donnelly, the founder of A Media Operator, a newsletter-based publication for people building digital media companies, said that standard industry practice is that the number of subscriptions refers to the number of people who receive the newsletter. "If I were to go out and say I have 1.3 million subscribers, what I'm saying to the advertiser is when I hit send, it's going out to 1.3 million people," he said, speaking generally and not about The Newsette specifically. "If someone is not subscribed to a product, I don't see how they could be classified as a subscriber." In a meeting with a potential advertiser earlier this year, a recording of which Business Insider reviewed, Pierson mentioned a subscriber count of "a million" and boasted that "every single day, our sponsors get at least 250,000 unique views." In the more than two years of newsletter data that Business Insider reviewed, The Newsette's newsletter only hit that many unique opens one time. More than half of the days, it had fewer than 200,000. At the end of 2020, von Furstenberg personally pitched Pierson to Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Pierson previously told Business Insider. The tech giant soon became one of the first clients of Newland, a creative agency that became, for a short time, The Newsette Media Group's cash cow. In 2021 and into 2022, Newland completed a number of projects for Amazon; Pierson told the Stanford audience that the company "was responsible for tens of millions of dollars in revenue." The agency took a 360-degree approach to social media marketing, coming up with the brief, hiring the talent, and handling the paid media. Campaigns included a viral Prime Day TikTok push featuring Snoop Dogg and a number of creators, and content for Women's History Month with Keke Palmer, Mindy Kaling, and von Furstenberg. According to two former employees familiar with the financials, the $40 million revenue figure Pierson touted represented gross revenue, or all of the money that flowed through the company, inclusive of cash reserved for talent and paid media. Most publicly owned ad agencies report net revenue — the money left over once a campaign is finished — and not gross revenue, which includes money the agency gets to pay for things like celebrity endorsements. When Amazon underwent a reorganization toward the end of 2022 and into 2023, the company largely paused its new work with Newland, according to four former employees. Amazon declined to comment to Business Insider about its business with Newland. After Amazon's departure, Pierson struggled to bring new clients to the agency, said four former employees. Newland, Pierson said, grew to eventually employ the majority of Newsette Media Group's employees. In December 2022, Newsette conducted one of several rounds of layoffs. Former employees said the layoffs were due to a cash crunch. By the end of 2023, Newland had completely folded. The Pierson spokesperson said the job cuts were not due to a "financial crunch," but were made for the sake of "efficiencies." For 2024, the company's revenue goal was a modest $5 million, according to internal documents. The Pierson spokesperson said those numbers were not accurate, but declined to provide additional numbers or documentation. In addition to Newsette Media Group, Pierson has been involved in other ventures. In 2021, she was announced as the co-CEO of Wondermind, a mental health website that she cofounded with Selena Gomez and the singer's mother, Mandy Teefey. In 2023, she quietly left the company; the circumstances of her departure have not been disclosed. After a press release about Pierson's investment in a group attempting to purchase Forbes went out, she posted on X that she was "on the board" of the magazine. The deal ended up falling through, and she was never on any board. Her most recent venture launched in May. Chasm is a $25,000-a-year membership club that aims to "close the gender gap through entrepreneurship." The club says its members include singer Lionel Richie and Spanx's Sara Blakely, neither of whom responded to Business Insider's request for comment. Membership fees will fund a website and award monthly five-figure grants to entrepreneurs, the first of which was announced on August 6. After being contacted for comment, Pierson sent a statement and posted it to Instagram, saying there was a coordinated attempt by people "who represent everything that my gender equality initiatives have fought to change" had launched a "smear campaign" against her and her companies, resulting in "false statements and fabricated information" aimed at eliminating her ability to "continue to put millions of my own dollars into helping women." "These false statements don't just affect me," she wrote. "They affect the thousands of women who we fund, spotlight, or promote via my companies." She said The Newsette Media Group "absolutely did" make $40 million in 2021, and defended Chasm, saying it was "on track to give away free resources and grants for female entrepreneurs worth millions this year alone." In a 2021 podcast interview, Pierson offered a vision of what it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur. "If you can sell yourself," she said, "you can basically do anything."
Scoop
16-06-2025
- Business
- Scoop
Why You Can't Deposit Cash Into Someone Else's Account At The Bank
You can do lots of things at a bank branch, but depositing cash into another person's account is probably not one of them. A spokesperson for New Zealand's biggest bank, ANZ, said it stopped accepting over-the-counter deposits into someone else's account last year. "You can still deposit cash into your own account over the counter or any ANZ accounts you are a signatory on, including business accounts. "A customer who wants to make payments to another person can deposit the cash into their own account and then transfer the money electronically. "An ANZ cardholder can also deposit cash into an ANZ ATM, which has the deposit function - a smart ATM. All ANZ NZ branches have at least one smart ATM." He said, at a smart ATM, a customer could also put money into another ANZ account. Both ANZ and Non-ANZ customers can deposit cash into business accounts held with ANZ. Westpac said it also did not allow deposits into other accounts. "Similar to most other banks, only personal account owners or authorised related party signatories can make over-the-counter cash deposits into their own accounts. "We also accept over-the-counter cash deposits from non-personal entities, such as organisations or clubs, although the depositor must also supply their full name and telephone number. "From 30 June, 2025, people will need a Westpac card when depositing cash into a Westpac personal account - their own or someone else's - at our ATMs. There is no change for non-personal entities." ASB said its own customers could make deposits into other customers' accounts. People who were not ASB customers could too, if they met ID requirements. Financial coach Shula Newland said this seemed weird to some people. "Legal tender can't be banked into someone's account to pay for something," she said. "In my own personal experience, it now means, if someone wants to pay me in cash, I now have the chore of going down to the bank to have to bank it myself." Newland said moving away from cash meant everything could be tracked much more easily. New Zealand Banking Association chief executive Roger Beaumont said banks were required to comply with the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act (AML), which could make accepting deposits difficult. "The law aims to stop people trying to disguise the origin of criminal profits, such as drug trafficking or fraud," he said. "Under the law, there are rules about verifying the source of the funds, and the identity of the person paying and the recipient. "In cases where you would like to make a cash payment at your branch to an account in another bank, your bank may not be able to comply with these rules. "Your bank may be able to suggest other ways you could make the payment." Banking expert Claire Matthews said that should not be a reason to stop accepting them. "I would have thought it would just be a flag that meant an explanation is required and only for large amounts." The change appears to be due to the work involved for branch staff in accepting a deposit. ANZ said it was not about AML so much as responding to changing customer behaviour. "More people are choosing to do their banking online or through our GoMoney app, with less than one percent of banking transactions now made in person."
American Military News
10-05-2025
- Business
- American Military News
‘Made in USA' gives edge to Denver manufacturer, but doesn't spare it effects of tariffs
Bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. is one of the prime reasons behind the Trump administration's tariffs, but Hercules Industries is ahead of the game. The Denver company's heating, ventilation and air conditioning products have been made in America since its start in 1962. Roughly 95% of the steel Hercules uses is made in America. And as other countries and companies deal with 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, Hercules Industries is reaping the benefits of long-term relationships with domestic suppliers. The tariffs are causing many of the country's smaller manufacturers to worry about the short-term implications of the trade war. So much so that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has asked the administration for an exemption for small businesses that import goods. Patrick Newland, whose grandfather, William Newland, started Hercules Industries, said having mostly domestic suppliers gives the company a bit of advantage in the face of tariffs. But it doesn't make the company immune to trade-war fallout. Colorado economists question the goals, approach of U.S. tariffs 'Since the tariffs, we have seen a slow increase in prices. We have seen domestic mills raise their prices every month,' said Newland, the vice president of business development. While the company is paying more for its steel, most of which is shipped from the South, it is holding off on raising customers' prices. Newland hopes that will help Hercules pick up more business. 'We're getting more leads because of the tariff increases and uncertainty,' said Nicole Thompson, marketing director, during a tour of the commercial production area. As costs rise for other countries, 'people are looking to source materials domestically,' Thompson said. Don Modesitt, the product manager for Hercules Industries, said the company can look out for its customers thanks to a strong inventory and long-term contracts with steel mills that allows it to plan ahead. 'As an American company that promotes American manufacturing and purchases American products as much as we can, Hercules does everything we can to be proactive, to keep prices as low as we can for our customers and to price them as fairly as we can,' Modesitt said. 'We realize it's not just our pain, it's also our downstream customers' pain,' added Modesitt, who's been in the metals industry since 1975. The impacts on those 'downstream' users of steel products will be substantial, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said. For every worker in steel production, the chamber said in a blog, there are about 80 Americans working for manufacturers that use steel. 'Ultimately, these tariffs will lead to higher costs for American businesses and consumers and fewer exports for American companies,' the chamber said. President Donald Trump has said Americans might feel pain from higher tariffs, but has urged people to 'hang tough' for the jobs and business growth he predicts will follow. Modesitt also believes the tariffs will ultimately benefit steel manufacturing and other U.S. industries, but 'not without short-term pain.' He sees the steel and aluminum tariffs as a way to counter China's practice of subsidizing production, allowing Chinese companies to sell at lower prices and undercut other countries. 'If tariffs start to equalize the way in which we work with the global economies, then down the road we will definitely be stronger than we are now,' Modesitt said. 'We will definitely have more American manufacturing here.' Keith Maskus, professor of economics emeritus at the University of Colorado-Boulder, doesn't expect the tariffs to generate many jobs or boost manufacturing much. Steel and aluminum tariffs were imposed during the first Trump administration in 2017 and 2018. 'It's estimated that they probably generated an additional 1,200 to 1,500 jobs in those sectors,' said Maskus, who was chief economist at the U.S. State Department in the Obama administration. But domestic steel companies raised their prices, which increased costs for other industries using steel and aluminum and resulted in the loss of 4,500 to 5,000 jobs, Maskus said. 'The tradeoff is a bad one.' 'We're here to stay' Whatever turmoil tariffs cause in the short or long term, Hercules Industries is making commitments to being around for the long haul. The company recently held a grand opening for a new 100,175-square-foot plant to house its commercial manufacturing of heating, ventilation and air conditioning, or HVAC products, for hotels, recreation centers, hospitals and other buildings. The new commercial building allowed the company to expand its processing operations in another building down the block in northeast Denver. 'When you look at a new building like this, and the investment that we put into it, it obviously says a huge amount about our confidence in the future … we're here to stay and this is a huge investment in what we see in the future in Colorado,' Andy Newland, Hercules Industries president, said in a statement. Hercules has factories and centers in six Western states: Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas. The company has about 280 employees in Colorado and a total of 685. In 2019, what was a family-owned business became an employee-owned business. The three Newland brothers who took charge of the company from their father and uncles created an Employee Stock Ownership Plan. John Newland is the district manager in the company's northern region. In the commercial fabrication building, Hercules employees take the sheets of various types of steel and fashion them into ducts, pipes, 'elbow' fixtures that fit into corners of buildings and other parts. The largest pipe is 82 inches in diameter. A big laser machine that's programmed by people in another part of the building is used to cut various shapes. 'We like to say, 'Draw it. We'll make it,' ' said Aga Waronska, the commercial branch manager. 'We can cut big and thick and we can also cut very small.' To make her point, Waronska pulled out of a drawer two steel bicycles so tiny that it was hard at first to tell what they were. Down the street, Mike DeRammelaere, the manager at the processing center, walked past big loops of steel that arrive via rail that leads right up to the building. One wrapped coil weighs 40,000 pounds. Depending on the steel's thickness, a loop can stretch up to tens of thousands of feet, Modesitt said. The coils are fed into machines that flatten and cut the steel into sheets, which are taken to the commercial division for fabrication. Other steel is slit into various sizes and shipped to another facility in Denver to make products geared toward the residential market. Hercules also sells smaller coils to other companies that make products but don't have the kind of machinery needed to handle larger sheets of metal. DeRammelaere, who's been with Hercules for 17 years, said the company averages four deliveries a week from the steel mills. 'We're able to process two full rail cars a day, which is about 400,000 pounds of material,' he said. Steel prices have leveled off, DeRammelaere said. 'Stainless steel and aluminum really shot up during the onset of tariffs.' But aluminum has become increasingly difficult to procure within the U.S., DeRammelaere said. 'A lot of U.S. companies shut down smelters 20 to 30 years ago. The majority of it comes out of Canada.' Hercules Industries anticipates a busy two years ahead. The company projects 15% increases in steel used each of the next two years. ___ © 2025 MediaNews Group, Inc. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Miami Herald
08-05-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
‘Made in USA' gives edge to Denver manufacturer, but doesn't spare it effects of tariffs
Bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. is one of the prime reasons behind the Trump administration's tariffs, but Hercules Industries is ahead of the game. The Denver company's heating, ventilation and air conditioning products have been made in America since its start in 1962. Roughly 95% of the steel Hercules uses is made in America. And as other countries and companies deal with 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, Hercules Industries is reaping the benefits of long-term relationships with domestic suppliers. The tariffs are causing many of the country's smaller manufacturers to worry about the short-term implications of the trade war. So much so that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has asked the administration for an exemption for small businesses that import goods. Patrick Newland, whose grandfather, William Newland, started Hercules Industries, said having mostly domestic suppliers gives the company a bit of advantage in the face of tariffs. But it doesn't make the company immune to trade-war fallout. Colorado economists question the goals, approach of U.S. tariffs "Since the tariffs, we have seen a slow increase in prices. We have seen domestic mills raise their prices every month," said Newland, the vice president of business development. While the company is paying more for its steel, most of which is shipped from the South, it is holding off on raising customers' prices. Newland hopes that will help Hercules pick up more business. "We're getting more leads because of the tariff increases and uncertainty," said Nicole Thompson, marketing director, during a tour of the commercial production area. As costs rise for other countries, "people are looking to source materials domestically," Thompson said. Don Modesitt, the product manager for Hercules Industries, said the company can look out for its customers thanks to a strong inventory and long-term contracts with steel mills that allows it to plan ahead. "As an American company that promotes American manufacturing and purchases American products as much as we can, Hercules does everything we can to be proactive, to keep prices as low as we can for our customers and to price them as fairly as we can," Modesitt said. "We realize it's not just our pain, it's also our downstream customers' pain," added Modesitt, who's been in the metals industry since 1975. The impacts on those "downstream" users of steel products will be substantial, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said. For every worker in steel production, the chamber said in a blog, there are about 80 Americans working for manufacturers that use steel. "Ultimately, these tariffs will lead to higher costs for American businesses and consumers and fewer exports for American companies," the chamber said. President Donald Trump has said Americans might feel pain from higher tariffs, but has urged people to "hang tough" for the jobs and business growth he predicts will follow. Modesitt also believes the tariffs will ultimately benefit steel manufacturing and other U.S. industries, but "not without short-term pain." He sees the steel and aluminum tariffs as a way to counter China's practice of subsidizing production, allowing Chinese companies to sell at lower prices and undercut other countries. "If tariffs start to equalize the way in which we work with the global economies, then down the road we will definitely be stronger than we are now," Modesitt said. "We will definitely have more American manufacturing here." Keith Maskus, professor of economics emeritus at the University of Colorado-Boulder, doesn't expect the tariffs to generate many jobs or boost manufacturing much. Steel and aluminum tariffs were imposed during the first Trump administration in 2017 and 2018. "It's estimated that they probably generated an additional 1,200 to 1,500 jobs in those sectors," said Maskus, who was chief economist at the U.S. State Department in the Obama administration. But domestic steel companies raised their prices, which increased costs for other industries using steel and aluminum and resulted in the loss of 4,500 to 5,000 jobs, Maskus said. "The tradeoff is a bad one." 'We're here to stay' Whatever turmoil tariffs cause in the short or long term, Hercules Industries is making commitments to being around for the long haul. The company recently held a grand opening for a new 100,175-square-foot plant to house its commercial manufacturing of heating, ventilation and air conditioning, or HVAC products, for hotels, recreation centers, hospitals and other buildings. The new commercial building allowed the company to expand its processing operations in another building down the block in northeast Denver. "When you look at a new building like this, and the investment that we put into it, it obviously says a huge amount about our confidence in the future … we're here to stay and this is a huge investment in what we see in the future in Colorado," Andy Newland, Hercules Industries president, said in a statement. Hercules has factories and centers in six Western states: Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas. The company has about 280 employees in Colorado and a total of 685. In 2019, what was a family-owned business became an employee-owned business. The three Newland brothers who took charge of the company from their father and uncles created an Employee Stock Ownership Plan. John Newland is the district manager in the company's northern region. In the commercial fabrication building, Hercules employees take the sheets of various types of steel and fashion them into ducts, pipes, "elbow" fixtures that fit into corners of buildings and other parts. The largest pipe is 82 inches in diameter. A big laser machine that's programmed by people in another part of the building is used to cut various shapes. "We like to say, 'Draw it. We'll make it,' " said Aga Waronska, the commercial branch manager. "We can cut big and thick and we can also cut very small." To make her point, Waronska pulled out of a drawer two steel bicycles so tiny that it was hard at first to tell what they were. Down the street, Mike DeRammelaere, the manager at the processing center, walked past big loops of steel that arrive via rail that leads right up to the building. One wrapped coil weighs 40,000 pounds. Depending on the steel's thickness, a loop can stretch up to tens of thousands of feet, Modesitt said. The coils are fed into machines that flatten and cut the steel into sheets, which are taken to the commercial division for fabrication. Other steel is slit into various sizes and shipped to another facility in Denver to make products geared toward the residential market. Hercules also sells smaller coils to other companies that make products but don't have the kind of machinery needed to handle larger sheets of metal. DeRammelaere, who's been with Hercules for 17 years, said the company averages four deliveries a week from the steel mills. "We're able to process two full rail cars a day, which is about 400,000 pounds of material," he said. Steel prices have leveled off, DeRammelaere said. "Stainless steel and aluminum really shot up during the onset of tariffs." But aluminum has become increasingly difficult to procure within the U.S., DeRammelaere said. "A lot of U.S. companies shut down smelters 20 to 30 years ago. The majority of it comes out of Canada." Hercules Industries anticipates a busy two years ahead. The company projects 15% increases in steel used each of the next two years. Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Area counties team up for specialized foster program
Apr. 21—LIMA — Child welfare agencies from Allen, Auglaize and Hardin counties are launching a multi-agency, tri-county Treatment Foster Care program. Allen County Children Services Executive Director Sarah Newland spoke at the Lima Rotary Club on Monday, explaining what the program means and what the public can expect moving forward. The program will create specialized, highly trained foster homes to treat children with behavioral and mental health needs in the homes to produce better outcomes for the children while keeping them in their communities. In the past, children from Allen County have been placed outside of the county to meet their needs. "With the rising number of kids that have special needs, higher needs and a decline in placement statewide, we are trying to find options for our youth that can meet their needs locally," Newland said. "We want kids back in our community." Allen County Children Services took in 762 reports in 2024, 72 percent of which were due to neglect or physical abuse. It also handled cases involving 414 positive drug screens. Children in group homes from Allen County are as far away as Cincinnati, Dayton and the northeastern part of the state. "It's not the best for kids," Newland said. "(We want to be able to) keep them in the school district, be around their family, so, that is our goal." The plan to develop Treatment Foster Care is moving forward, including recruiting and supporting treatment foster homes willing to take on eligible children for the program with individual support, training, on-call 24/7 caseworker support and counseling for crisis response, according to information from Children Services. Anyone interested in fostering can call the Allen County Children Services at 419-227-8590. "We are always looking for foster care placements," Newland said. Allen County Children Services is located at 123 W. Spring St., Lima. Reach Cade Higgins at 567-242-0351 Featured Local Savings
