Flag Raised at County Headquarters to Recognize LGBTQ+ Pride Month

Bucks County last month held a ribbon cutting ceremony to unveil the newly constructed Diversion, Assessment, Restoration and Treatment (DART) Center in Doylestown Township.

Expected to begin accepting residents this month, the 23,000 square-foot facility will serve adults with serious mental illness and co-occurring substance use issues who are involved with the criminal justice system.

“We have wanted to do something about this problem – to get people diverted from the criminal justice system,” said Commissioner Chair Diane Ellis-Marseglia, LCSW. “But one piece of the puzzle was missing. It was this place.”

Through treatment and skill development, the Center will operate with the goals of diverting people from incarceration, reducing days of incarceration, reducing utilization of State institutions and reducing recidivism.

The DART Center houses three distinct tracks within this Residential Treatment Center for Adults:

• Short-Term Assessment and Stabilization – A safe transitional opportunity assessment and referral (up to eight individuals)
• Restoration of Competency Unit – For individuals involved in the criminal justice system who have been deemed Incompetent to Stand Trial (up to four individuals)
• Community Integration – A space for individuals in need of treatment and daily living skill development to support movement to more independent living in the community (up to 16 individuals)

At full capacity, the DART can simultaneously serve up to 28 people.

Bucks County has hired the GEO Group to manage day-to-day operations at the DART Center, with oversight from Bucks County BH/DP.

“Right now, there’s a person, maybe more than one, who doesn’t even know that the DART Center exists. They are somewhere hard, in a cell somewhere, trying to get through another day [in a world] that has told them they’re too complicated to help,” said Dr. Mathew Abraham, Senior Director of Treatment and Program Development for GEO. “That person is going to find their way here, and when they do, they will walk through a door that says, ‘we see you, you are worth all of this.’”

Located on the grounds of the former Women’s Community Corrections Center, construction on the DART began in late 2023.

Credit: Submitted

The total projected cost to build the facility is about $19.8 million. The County has paid for the construction with a combination of mostly federal and state funds, with about $1.8 million coming from the County’s General Fund.

“Today marks an important milestone for Bucks County, because we are not simply opening a building,” said General Services Director Bernard Griggs. “We are opening a pathway to a more compassionate, affective approach to mental health and criminal justice.

General contracting work on the project was performed by Magnum, Inc., with architecture services by USA Architects, engineering by Carroll Engineering and Windward, electrical work by the Farfield Company, mechanical services by Integrity Mechanical, Inc., plumbing services by Vision Mechanical, fire protection work by Guy M. Cooper Mechanical and construction management by Jingoli.

Commissioner Vice Chair Bob Harvie, speaking  to a crowd of County officials and community stakeholders gathered to mark the DART’s opening, reflected on the questions that drove the facility’s planning years before its construction.

“What could we do on this spot that could make a difference?” he said. “What can we do on this spot that has meaning for people who really need help at a time that might be the lowest in their lives, that serves a purpose, and helps law enforcement and the criminal justice system appropriately handle people who shouldn’t be in a prison, but end up there because there is nowhere else to go?”

The DART Center is just the latest effort by the County to improve mental health services for Bucks County residents, especially those whose illness brings them into contact with the criminal justice system.

One ongoing effort is the award-winning Human Services Co-Responders Program, which embeds social workers in police departments to assist officers when encountering people in need of social services. Since launching in 2020 with the Bensalem Police Department, the program has expanded to serve more than two dozen police departments countywide.

In partnership with the Bucks County Court of Common Pleas, the County has also established specialized court programs to address the unique needs of qualifying offenders, including Recovery Court, Wellness Court and Veterans Treatment Court. These programs have been nationally recognized and are instructive for similar programs across the country.

PHOTO: Jeff Contino, Director of the Diversion, Assessment, Restoration and Treatment (DART) Center, on Feb. 25, 2026, leads Bucks County District Attorney Joe Khan, Sheriff Danny Ceisler, Prothonotary Donna Petrecco and others in a tour of the newly completed facility. Credit: Submitted

A Lower Bucks lawmaker planning on presenting a law that seeks to take on utility sales strategies from suppliers and better protect consumers by creating a

State Rep Joe Hogan (R-Bucks) announced that he plans to reintroduce legislation that would protect individuals from potentially predatory sales tactics utilized by certain utility suppliers. The legislation would amend the Public Utility Code to require electric and natural gas distribution companies to maintain a “Do-Not-Switch List” of accounts.

The proposed legislation would put into place, under the guidance of the Public Utility Commission, a listing upon the request of an account holder, for example, that they be placed on the do-not-switch list.

This would help ensure that overly forceful sales tactics and unauthorized switching of suppliers, sometimes referred to as “slamming,” could not be utilized against vulnerable Pennsylvanians, said Hogan.

“When I introduced similar legislation in 2024, my hope was we would see quick action on an issue that directly effect’s vulnerable members of our community and would be an easy fix for the Legislature,” said Hogan. “While it did not see movement then, I am reintroducing this legislation now to continue to advocate for protection from predatory tactics regarding our energy bills.”

Energy costs throughout the Commonwealth has been an ongoing conversation with costs rising and consumers seeking ways and means to them in check, officials have noted in numerous media stories.

This legislation is awaiting the assignment of a bill number and committee, Hogan’s office said.

Director Heather Dune Macadam screens her award-winning documentary, ‘The Forgotten Girls’ of the Holocaust” in the Zlock Performing Arts Center at the Bucks County Community College (BCCC) Newtown Campus.

Edith Grosman was seventeen when Slovak officials ordered unmarried Jewish girls to register for work service. Filled with a sense of national pride, she joined hundreds of other innocent young women who were under the false impression their patriotic duty would benefit their families. Instead, they were deported to Auschwitz as expendable slave labor.

Edith Grosman is among those who tell their incredible stories of surviving the Holocaust in the award-winning documentary “999: The Forgotten Girls.” (Submitted by BCCC)

Grosman and others tell their incredible stories of survival first-hand in the award-winning documentary “999: The Forgotten Girls,” coming to BCCC at 6 p.m. Thursday, March 26. The free screening, supported by a Mark Schonwetter Foundation Grant, is presented by the College’s School of Social and Behavioral Science and the Holocaust and Genocide Studies certificate program, includes a question-and-answer session with Macadam.

The Slovak government paid the Nazis the equivalent of $3,000 to deport each girl. Through first-person testimony and rare archival material, we learn the little-known facts of the women’s camp in 1942 and how a handful of the girls managed against all odds to survive over three long years of hell on earth.

“Too many stories — especially those of young women — remain untold or overlooked,” said Paula Raimondo, Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies. “The first transport of Jewish girls from Slovakia to Auschwitz is not widely known, yet it reveals so much about deception, state complicity, gendered persecution, and resilience. When we bring these histories into the light, we not only honor the victims and survivors, we challenge ourselves to confront the systems that made such atrocities possible.”

Edie Valo (left) and Ella Rutman (right), photographed with friends in 1941, were part of the first transport of Jewish women to Auschwitz. Their stories are told in the documentary “999: The Forgotten Girls” (PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of the Rutman family)

Macadam spent over 20 years researching and interviewing families, witnesses, and survivors of the first official transport to Auschwitz. Her internationally acclaimed book “999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz” (published in 2020), on which the film is based, has been translated into 18 languages and was a PEN Finalist in 2021. The film was honored with the Human Rights Award at the Hamptons Documentary Fest, Best Documentary at the Miami Jewish Film Festival Audience Award, and as an official selection of the New York Jewish Film Festival.

Heather Dune Macadam, director, producer, and author, comes to Bucks County Community College March 26 to screen her award-winning documentary “999: The Forgotten Girls” about the first official transport of young Jewish women to Auschwitz. A Q&A will follow the film, presented by the School of Social and Behavioral Science and the Holocaust and Genocide Studies certificate program. (PHOTO CREDIT: Keith Barraclough)

“I am especially thrilled to offer this event in conjunction with our spring Rescue and Resistance course, in which students spend the semester examining moral courage, defiance, and survival under unimaginable circumstances,” added Raimondo. “Hearing this story — grounded in first-person testimony and Heather’s years of research — deepens that study in a profound way. It reminds us that resistance took many forms, including the daily, determined will to survive.”

Click here for a campus map and directions. 

To learn more about the College’s Holocaust and Genocide Studies certificate program, contact the School of Social and Behavioral Science at sb@bucks.edu or 215-968-8270.