About The Relatives

Crisis Center

The Relatives Crisis Center has been operating since 1974 providing a safe location for youth 7-17 who have run away from home, are homeless, or just going through a rough family situation with nowhere else to turn. For up to 14 days, you will have a SAFE place to go where you and your family can work on the issues that caused you to need help. The main goal at The Relatives is to make sure you are safe! Most people stay less than 8 days because staff members work hard to help put plans in place to keep you and your family on the right track. Nine people can stay here at a time, and everyone is expected to work hard on their problems, take care of the house, and help each other stay SAFE.

Some of the services we offer are:

24-hour Crisis Hotline

You can call us any time day or night to ask questions, talk about your problems, or find out how you can help someone you know.

Walk-In Crisis Support

You don’t have to stay at the house to get help. You can just walk up and have a meeting with one of our staff to figure out how to handle a situation that you are going through.

Aftercare Services

If you stay with The Relatives, or just walk up to our door for help, we will check up with you for a year if you want us to. If you are still having some problems and need help, you are always welcome to come back to talk with us. When we have activities going on that we think you would like, we will invite you back to join us, too.

Parenting Support

We offer free classes to parents using the Love and Logic model of parenting. This is a way for parents to learn new techniques for handling situations that happen at home that sometimes get out of hand.

On Ramp

On Ramp is a resource center that helps young adults 16-24 transition from circumstances like foster care, mental health programs, homelessness and unstable living situations, to successful adulthood. The On Ramp is a special program because it is a true partnership of many different agencies and programs in Mecklenburg County that can offer support to help you reach your potential. The On Ramp uses a model called RENEW to focus on helping you set and meet goals in education, employment, health and safety, community interaction, and housing.

The services we provide are:

Intensive Case Management

Intensive Case Management is one-on-one support from your Transition Specialist. Your Transition Specialist will work with you to help you figure out where you want your life to go and what is needed to get you there.

Futures Planning

Your future is just that—YOUR future. We help you make and follow a plan that will help you get on the road to becoming independent and successful. Your plans have goals that you say you want for yourself and who you want to help you with achieving those goals.

At the On Ramp, we offer workshops designed to prepare you for the many challenges you may face as an adult like managing your money so that you can pay things like household bills and rent, learning how to take control of your health by going to the doctor, and help with developing relationships with people that can support you in your journey to independence.

Our staff will help guide you through YOUR plan for the future. We have volunteers who also work to help you meet your goals. A Peer Mentor will be also offered to you to help guide you in learning these new skills. If interested, we can also help you become a Peer Mentor so you can help other young people in the program meet their goals.

The Relatives began partnering with National Safe Place in 1988 to create a local network of businesses, public resources, churches, schools, and transportation services, who were willing to post Safe Place signs throughout our community to identify themselves as a place to get help for kids in crisis. Any child or teen can ask for help at these locations and be connected to The Relatives Crisis Center free of charge. Our Safe Place program allows The Relatives to expand its reach to more youth in the community and allow businesses to help this on going effort.