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BUCKHANNON, W.Va. -- Bed For Every Head, a program of Riverstone Community Services serving West Virginia, is expanding to Ohio, beginning in Washington County.
"Bed For Every Head was created because where a child lives should not determine whether there is a realistic path to getting that child a bed," said Titus Swan, founder and chief executive of the West Virginia State Hospital Initiative, Inc.
Riverstone Community Services is the community services arm of the West Virginia State Hospital Initiative, Inc. WVSHI began with historical research, preservation, education, and documentation related to West Virginia's state hospital system and the people connected to it.
Bed For Every Head provides complete sleeping arrangements for children and other eligible household members who do not have an appropriate bed. Depending on the need, that may include twin beds, cribs, bassinets, toddler beds, bunk beds or other appropriate arrangements.
The program was created in West Virginia, in Aug. 2025, in response to the lack of an equitable statewide response for families who needed beds but had no consistent way to access that help, said Swan. Bed For Every Head now serves families across West Virginia without limiting assistance to a single county, city, or service area.
Riverstone Community Services, now registered in Ohio, is preparing to establish the first referral lane for the program with a local partner in Washington County as the starting point. Once that process is in place, the organization plans to open applications to the entire county.
Riverstone plans to add more referral lanes and begin expanding into additional Ohio counties, with the long-term goal of eventually serving the entire state in the same way it now serves West Virginia.
"West Virginia did not have an equitable statewide response to that need, so we built one. We know the model works because we have already proven it here. Ohio does not require us to reinvent it. It requires us to build the relationships, funding, and access necessary to make that same response available there," said Swan.
That work remains part of the organization's mission, and the move into Ohio may eventually create opportunities to expand that side of the work as well. The needs Riverstone addresses were never limited to West Virginia, and neither was the larger state hospital and asylum system.
Swan said Washington County is intended to be the beginning of a larger Ohio presence.
"We are starting deliberately; with one county and a referral structure we can build on. Once that is established, the goal is to widen access in Washington County and then continue into other parts of Ohio. West Virginia is still home, but there is no reason a program that works here must stop at the state line," he said.
West Virginia State Hospital Initiative, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Riverstone Community Services operates as its community services arm.