Joseph I. Abraham, Ed.D.
Joseph I. Abraham, Ed.D., is the co-founder and President/CEO of The IMPACT Project, Inc., in Emmaus, Pennsylvania. IMPACT provides foster care, independent living programs, juvenile court evaluations, Community Justice Panels, The Collegiate Mentoring Program, The School Justice Panel Program, and counseling services to a variety of clients. The program specializes in working with adolescents who present with a variety of problematic behaviors, most notably, juvenile offenders. The IMPACT Project, Inc., was voted Residential Program of the Year, in 1993, by Pennsylvania’s Juvenile Court Judges’ Commission (JCJC). In 2002, The IMPACT Project, Inc., was again awarded the Community-based Program of the Year by JCJC. Currently, The IMPACT Project, Inc. services approximately 75 youth on a daily basis in their residential programs and over 400 youth per year in their nonresidential diversion programs.
Dr. Abraham has conducted clinical interviews and evaluations for juveniles awaiting placement for the past twenty-five years. Because these interviews take place at the location where a youth is currently residing, it afforded extensive opportunities for Dr. Abraham to thoroughly understand many of the programs, which exist within the Pennsylvania Juvenile Justice System. As a result, he is requested to evaluate youth who are seeking a transfer from adult court or awaiting adjudication and/or disposition in juvenile court. Those evaluations are needed to determine the youth’s amenability to treatment within the juvenile system in Pennsylvania, level of criminal sophistication, and if an appropriate juvenile treatment facility exists. Dr. Abraham has served as a forensic expert in juvenile court in over 20 counties in Pennsylvania, having provided professional testimony at more that 2,000 juvenile court hearings.
Previously, Dr. Abraham spent almost seven years with CONCERN Professional Services for Children and Youth. While there, he created the Delinquency Services Division, and was responsible for all facets of program development, treatment, case management delivery systems, and public relations/marketing. He developed and oversaw treatment programs which included independent living, foster care, group homes, and alternatives to secure facilities. In 1990, a program in his department won the JCJC award as Pennsylvania’s Residential Program of the Year.
Dr. Abraham holds the unique distinction of being the only individual in Pennsylvania to have three separate programs for juvenile offenders, which he designed, win the prestigious JCJC Program of the Year. His doctoral dissertation on The Effects of Moral Development Discussion Groups and Social Skills Training Groups with Male Juvenile Offenders strengthened his expertise in the field of juvenile corrections. The treatment was run exclusively at Montgomery County Juvenile Probation and has since been used in many other types of facilities. His clinical groups have been used in numerous day treatment and shelter/detention school and residential settings. There are no longer any copyright restrictions on these treatments as he wishes to offer them at no cost or obligation. The website is designed to share his treatments with any individual, group, or organization that wishes to expand the moral reasoning repertoire of juvenile offenders. The only caveat to note is that for those who choose to utilize these treatments, it is asked that they acknowledge that the treatments were developed by and based on the previous work of Dr. Joseph I. Abraham.
Academically, Dr. Abraham holds a bachelor’s degree from Kutztown University, with a double major in Psychology and Criminal Justice. His master’s and doctorate degrees are from Lehigh University’s Counseling Psychology Department. He also served for ten years, as an adjunct faculty member at Lehigh University, in their graduate school’s Department of Counseling Psychology and their undergraduate Psychology Department. His specialty was coursework in Psychological Testing, Tests and Measurements, and Psychological Statistics.
Dr. Abraham provides a great deal of consulting services to industry, social service agencies, and a number of state and county programs. He is currently the Chairperson for the Delinquency Services workgroup through The Pennsylvania Council of Children, Youth & Family Services, which is a statewide organization of private agencies. The members of “Pennsylvania Council” are the service providers who provide the direct “hands-on” programs and supports needed to achieve and maintain permanency and safety for children and youth and stability for families.