BEVERLY BOONE

Founding Executive Director

Our Founding Executive Director, Beverly Boone grew up in Reading, PA and is the first person in her family to earn a college degree. She later attended The Pennsylvania State University where she earned her Master’s Degree and became a lecturer in English. As a lecturer she specialized in curriculum development for students with special learning needs and learning disabilities.

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After moving to California, she continued her work with special needs learners as the Assistant Director of a tutoring center. She also taught freshman composition at Mira Costa College. While at the tutoring center, Beverly quickly distinguished herself as having an ability to work with teenagers who were difficult to work with due to their behaviors. None of the other tutors would work with those students, but she was able to develop a rapport with them and help them to begin to excel at their school work.   

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Friend and board member emeritus Charlie Claycomb approached Beverly one day with a business opportunity. He told her that a friend of his had a house he had rented to a couple who had used it for a residential treatment center for boys in the foster care system, but they had lost their license. His friend was looking for someone to start up the same kind of business in the house and Charlie wondered since Beverly worked with children, would she want to do it? Beverly told him that she was unfamiliar with that type of business and would have to research it before giving an answer. In those days before the internet, Beverly had to go to the local library. Her research revealed that children in the foster care system had a high incidence of learning disabilities, and she knew she had found her calling. She said yes, and after many months of preparation and approval for license,

Milestone House was opened on September 29, 1992.   

Over the years, Beverly has become expert at running a treatment center for children who are survivors of child abuse and works tirelessly to advocate for these often forgotten young people. She saw the need for programs to assist young adults leaving the foster care system and started the Fostering Adulthood Program. She also recognized that foster children are the least likely of all children to gain proficiency on a musical instrument and launched the Fostering Music Program.    Recognizing the need for improved training for staff that work with children in residential treatment, she wrote and published Basic Training for Residential Childcare Workers, which is the only comprehensive training manual for residential care staff. She is also the author of two additional books.   

For more than 30 years, Beverly has been the Executive Director of Milestone House and continues her work to help foster children and former foster youth with the same determination and enthusiasm to this day.