Founder: Heidi Goldsmith
Heidi now lives in Israel and can be reached via Facebook or coreheidi [at] gmail [dot] com.
Heidi Goldsmith
Ms. Goldsmith founded CORE in 1994 with the vision that one day every child, regardless of income, background, or social status, will have the option of living in a safe, nurturing, and educative environment — making it possible for children to realize their full potential as individuals and productive citizens.
Ms. Goldsmith became passionate about providing the residential education option for youth when she saw the number of children in foster care rising while, at the same time, the number of available foster homes declining. Familiar with and inspired by Israel’s effective youth villages, she created a similar national network of residential education programs in the US.
Ms. Goldsmith believes that “one size does not fit all” when it comes to our nation’s disadvantaged youth, and believes all children should have options when it comes to where they live and go to school. These options, including family reunification, adoption, foster care, residential education, and residential treatment, should be carefully considered to determine which ones are best for each particular child.
Ms. Goldsmith has worked with state and federal policymakers to explain the nature of and need for residential education, and has helped them develop policies supportive of new and existing residential programs. She also has consulted with existing programs to improve their practices. Ms. Goldsmith has helped develop numerous new publicly/privately-funded residential education programs that have opened in the past decade.
Ms. Goldsmith is author of numerous monographs, articles, book chapters, and Op-Eds on residential education, and frequently presented at national and local forums on this option for children.
Ms. Goldsmith spent thirty years as a community organizer and manager of social and educational services for disadvantaged populations. She is a graduate of Brandeis University’s Heller Graduate School in Social Welfare Policy where she earned a Master’s Degree in the Management of Human Services, and a graduate of the University of Maryland where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Education.
Ms. Goldsmith was the coordinator of the U.S.-Israel Memorandum of Understanding in Social Services, under a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which led to the initiative to adapt components of Israel’s extensive residential education system to North America. Prior to that, she was director of overseas programs for the International Office of Hillel, the college campus group for Jewish students. Ms. Goldsmith began her lifelong involvement serving youth as a teenager when she organized a city-wide tutoring program for inner city children by local high school students in her native Baltimore.