Youth Homes

Program Definition
The Flathead Youth Home is coeducational, eight-bed, and dual-licensed home in order to provide shelter and longer term group care for local youngsters. This program combines the qualities of short term sheltering and longer term group care in our one home and program and offers immediate and extended care and services. Shelter is defined as care for thirty (30) days or less and emphasizes safety and crisis intervention. Group care is a placement of more than 30 days and, while maintaining safety and addressing crisis, the program moves on to a transitional process that addresses longer term goals and behavioral stabilization.

Beliefs
The program is designed upon a foundation of beliefs:

• crisis is opportunity
• kids often act out to get attention and giving them attention may shed light on why they are making these choices.
• Youth will make more progress in their life when caring adults work from a strength-based approach
• keeping kids close to “home” is best in most cases, as it retains relationship to family and sustains a relationship with the youth’s community
• caring for youth in a community setting, is more successful and reduces the need for extended acculturation

Target Population
The Home serves youth ages 10 to 18 and gives priority to serving youngsters from Flathead County and the other Northwestern Counties in Montana. Youth served may simply need a place to stay, may have run or are at risk of running from home, have significant social, legal, emotional, protection or family issues. The Flathead Youth Home accepts referrals from parents or guardians, youth court probation officers, child protection workers, mental health professionals, chemical dependency counselors or anyone knowing of a child in need of shelter or assistance. Our Runaway Homeless Youth Program accepts parent and self-referrals.


Location
The home is located close to downtown, very close to Flathead High School and easy access to Glacier High School and Elementary schools in the area. The home is also accessible to many commercial and needed social services. It is a large house that has single bedrooms for the residents and ample living space in a “great” room design. It also houses staff offices and rooms for team meetings and a private place for family or outside workers to meet with a youngster in care. The home has a recreation room apart from the main living area. The home sits on city lots and is situated in a single family home neighborhood with a church as a neighbor on one side. The home was built with the unique needs and design for being a group home for adolescents.


Criteria for Admission
The target population for shelter is established by the Board of Directors of Youth Homes, set forth in these policies and includes a short stay for the youth who is appropriate for care and services defined as:

1. boys and girls between the ages of 10 and 18
2. under the jurisdiction of the Child Protective System, the State’s Correctional Department, the Youth Court System, Medicaid Behavioral Health Program or the parents' custody
3. status offenders, especially runaway or ungovernable
4. homeless due to having been kicked out or run away from home
5. non-serious offenders or delinquents
6. abused, neglected or exploited
7. moderately or severely emotionally disturbed
8. in conflict with their family

The program should NOT serve youth who:

1. present an immediate threat to the community or others
2. are suffering from a psychotic illness (delusional, schizophrenic or hallucination) or a major affective disorder (high suicide risk)
3. present immediate physical threat to others
4. have been adjudicated as a sexual offender and have not completed treatment with a discharge plan or received a psycho-sexual assessment or been consulted with our program manager and a determination made as to presenting a low risk
5. are not committed to the resolution of their crisis and a case plan

For those who need to stay longer than 30 days the youth is appropriate for care and services if he or she has:

1. continued to meet the criteria above for admission
2. developed a transitional plan that will positively move the youth toward a successful placement out of the group home
3. goals for transitioning that can and have a reasonable chance of being met within the time frame proposed in group care
4. a need for the structure of this program to stabilize more before moving to a permanent placement
5. the ability to successfully maintain in the community and in an open setting
6. no other option for placement that is available or appropriate

Application
Youth referred for crisis care are allowed admittance from a phone referral to the program staff, with the Program Directors authority, that includes necessary information to insure the safety of the youth and others in the home, some idea of the crisis that puts the youth into care and what the immediate plans are to address the crisis. As soon as possible after admission, a meeting shall be held that develops a plan for the youth’s stay and addresses his or her immediate needs. In this meeting, a plan and duration shall be estimated to assist the youth and other adults involved in their life in making a successful transition to the place the youth will live.

If the youth needs an extended stay (beyond 30 days) the placing worker must submit a more complete application in compliance with state rules. The application will be reviewed by an *admissions consultative process established by the corporation and a determination will be made as to whether a longer placement is appropriate.

*admissions consultative process – consists of a conference call involving the Program Director, our Executive Director and our Director of Operations. Others may be included in this decision making process at the discretion of the corporation.

Staffing Design

• The program employs a full time Program Director who reports to the Executive Director. The Program Director has a college degree in a social services field and experience working in the youth services system.
• One full-time home manager who supervises the day-to-day functioning of the environment to assure the Flathead Youth Home is as home-like as possible.
• Four full-time therapeutic youth care workers who have college degrees. Some have achieved senior therapeutic youth care worker status based upon longevity in the job and achieving specific higher skill levels.
• Two full-time overnight therapeutic youth care workers who are awake throughout the night for the residents
• The home employs therapeutic youth care relief workers who fill in for the full time staff and meet the same responsibilities
• The Runaway and Homeless Youth Program employs 2 therapeutic youth care workers counselors who work with runaways in the home and out in the community with hours away from the staffing ratios required by our licensure.

Program Structure
A stay in this program can be as short as a few hours or as long as twelve months if necessary and appropriate to the individual’s situation and needs. Group care can be extended even further than the one year limit should all conditions for continued admission be met, an updated plan appropriate to the individual’s situation and the case has been reviewed by admissions.

The Flathead Youth Home utilizes a level system that awards privilege based upon appropriate behavior. Youth address personal and transitional plans that move them toward success. While the program holds the youth to be accountable and demands they “own” their behavior, the approach is strength-based in directing them to determine and find answers that make their life work best.

While the program is willing to be flexible in meeting the needs of each youth through an individual approach, the program is based upon the principles found in Parenting with Love and Logic, Jim Fay and Foster W. Cline, M.D. We have used this proven model for decades as it gives the youth in our care the direction they need with reduced conflict. Often this conflict has been the cause of family and placement breakdowns.
The Parenting with Love and Logic approach is based on the following two assumptions:

1. Children learn the best lessons when they are given a task and allowed to make their own choices (and fail) when the cost of failure is still small; and
2. Children's failures must be coupled with love and empathy from their parents and teachers

This approach has been used by parents and teachers for 30 years and been applied to a wide range of situations. We find it to be the most effective method in parenting others’ children and youth.

At the Flathead Youth Home, young people receive:

• a safe, stable and creative environment staffed by therapeutic child care workers, a home manager, and a Program Manager
• individual and group sessions that promote healthy emotional expression, increases self-esteem and teaches anger management and other inter-personal skills
• a structured daily program, including school, recreational and cultural activities
• a privilege system that teaches social skills and behavior management
• access to community services, including education, professional therapy and health care
• focus on cultural identity development. Each youth is given a multi-ethnic identity assessment and individual goals are added to their case plan

In addition to shelter and group care we have a Runaway Homeless Youth Program (RHYP) funded through a Federal Grant for three years which can be renewed thereafter. This grant allows us to address the issues of non-system homeless youth in the area in specific ways. The grant allows workers to provide resources for individuals up to the age of 25. This RHYP will be operated out of the Flathead Youth Home utilizing senior staff to meet the goals of the program. Two components of the program involve community outreach and working with youth residing at the Flathead Youth Home. The goal of this program is to provide services to prevent and resolve runaway, push-out and homeless youth situations. To address these issues, the program will utilize positive youth development to help youth learn to build relationships, build strengths, facilitate recognition of options, provide information and skills to instill a sense of control and provide activities to prevent boredom. A written application should be submitted to our Program Director at the address below.

Contacts
Lance Isaak, Program Director
825 E. Oregon Street
Kalispell, MT 59901
Phone: (406) 755-4622
Fax: (406) 755-4623
lisaak@youthhomes.com

Hannah Plumb, Development Coordinator
825 E. Oregon Street
Kalispell, MT 59901
Phone: (406) 755-4622
Fax: (406) 755-4623
hplumb@youthhomes.com

At the request of United Way of Flathead County, other concerned Flathead citizens and agencies, Youth Homes was invited into the communities of the Flathead and developed this program—our 1st group home developed outside of Missoula County in 1997. The Program is guided by a local Assistance Board to insure that the Home reflects the values of the community it serves and is built into the fabric of that community.