We provide open-ended, individual psychotherapy, free of charge, to young people in foster care, or those who were previously in foster care.
Anyone can make a referral, and anyone who is eligible for our services can refer themselves.
A Home Within staff will contact you by email within five business days for more detailed information. We will work to identify a volunteer therapist who is a good fit for your therapeutic goals, then connect you with that therapist to begin sessions.
Our volunteers donate one 50-minute therapy session per week in a private practice setting. They do not provide continuous crisis intervention, emergency services, intensive outpatient services, after-hours support, family therapy, care coordination, and/or complex case management services.
For additional questions, contact Grace Manger, National Program Director, at grace@ahomewithin.org.
Please note we are currently not accepting new referrals for the Boston Chapter. We will remove this message when we resume accepting referrals. Thank you for your understanding.
Thank you for doing such amazing work. I have had an A Home Within therapist for over 10 years now and he has transformed my life. I would not be where I am today without him. I still have weekly sessions. I hope to one day be one of your volunteer therapists so I can give back even more.
– R., A Home Within Client
I didn’t expect to be in control. I didn’t expect my time in this relationship to allow me to be the expert on me, and to come into therapy being valued. My intuition and my discernment is something that is held in high regard in our work together. That’s something I wasn’t used to. I’m used to receiving the treatment and something being done to me. At AHW, my therapist gives me the space to bring my whole self into the session and explore some of the wisdom that I already hold.
– A Home Within Client
My life has been a series of bad lucks and good lucks. The parents I got were bad luck. Some of my foster homes were really bad luck. My last foster family was one of the best lucks I’ve had. Finding A Home Within is very, very good luck.
– A Home Within Client
I can’t believe something like this exists, with no deadline for ending. I can’t think of a group of people who need that more than us [foster youth].
– A Home Within Client
This is all I want for her. This little girl has had more forced changes than anyone should have their whole life. I’m trying to be as consistent as I can for her, but she needs more of that. She needs to see that I’m not the only one.
– Adopted mother of A Home Within Client
My therapist has helped me so much in just the first 6 sessions. I look forward to it every week. Thank you for matching me with her, I can’t thank you enough!
– A Home Within Client
But I still need help, I still need…support, I still need to not be written off. Like, ‘Yeah, you are emancipated, now go do life.’ I was still homeless when I was emancipated and I was not in the system before I went to college. And so, we have the system that’s kind of supposed to be protecting us, but it shuffles us into a different pipeline of more traumatic experiences. And I don’t want to be known as someone that just survived and made it through. I was resilient. I did what I was supposed to do, but also, I still needed love. I still need love, I still need support even though I was strong, I still needed someone to ask me if I was okay. And often we’re not checking on the strong people.
– A Home Within Client
A Home Within… provide[s] proof to foster youth and alumni that we are not ‘forgettable,’ not easily forgotten people and that we matter as much as everyone else who walks this earth. That recognition alone gives me a source of strength to keep going when I’m struggling to justify my existence.
– A Home Within Client
Referral Request Form
At a Glance
Since 1994, thousands of foster youth have developed transformative healing relationships with A Home Within therapists
On average, every young person we match receives three years of free, one-on-one therapy that supports their healing, health, and success
There’s no age restriction: A Home Within clients range in age from 2 to 72