Who We Are

Heart of the Community, Inc. is a privately owned licensed child placing agency incorporated in the State of North Carolina on June 12, 2006 and licensed on June 5, 2007.  We are based in Dillsboro (Jackson County), North Carolina, and we are able to serve family and therapeutic foster care clients who are within a 150 mile radius of our office headquarters.  

Most children are referred to Heart of the Community, Inc.'s therapeutic foster care program by local departments of social services. These children may be in the foster care system or they may be in the custody of their parents. Some children will be reunited with their families after their course of treatment, while others will go on to be adopted or become involved in an independent living program.     

Therapeutic foster care is designed to serve children with special psychological, social, behavioral and emotional needs who can accept and respond to the close relationships within a family setting but whose special needs require more intensive or therapeutic services than are found in traditional foster care.   Our focus is to provide care that identifies each child's strengths and challenges and that directly assists foster parents in building the child's strengths and in addressing his/her challenges.

Founder

Reneé Stewart Hannah is a wife and mother of two sons.   She is a native North Carolinian having spent the majority of her formative years in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.   Ms. Hannah has devoted her life and career to helping others in need.   Her sense of compassion and genuine caring for others is what ultimately lead her to her livelihood in social work.  

Ms. Hannah has a Bachelor's Degree in Social Work from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina and a Master's Degree in Social Work from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.   She has also attained her   Provisional Licensed Clinical Social Worker (P-LCSW) license and is working towards full clinical social work licensure.   She has over twenty years of diverse human services related experience encompassing direct service provision, administrative/supervisory functions, and a knowledge and understanding of state government operations in mental health, public health, social service and juvenile justice programs.  

Ms. Hannah is a certified instructor in Group Preparation and Selection/Model Approach to Partnerships in Parenting (MAPP/GPS), Fostering and Adopting the Child Who Has Been Sexually Abused (CSA/MAPP) and Shared Parenting.   Through Heart of the Community, Inc., she aspires to continue her commitment to children and families.