|
|
|||||||||||||
|
Foster Care Plus -- combining family, stability, opportunity |
||
|
Our goal for every child who lives at HCYR is that he or she will get a fresh start, a terrific education, and come to a sense of belonging during his or her time at the Ranch. In order to make it possible for a child to form and keep attachments at the Ranch, especially when family reunification is not an option, the Ranch has developed a continuum of care that includes on-campus foster families who receive children after time spent in the RTC program, if they were admitted needing that more structured environment. In foster care, a family atmosphere takes the place of the treatment structure of RTC, and children are encouraged to develop both privilege and responsibility as they mature. At the end of the day, their house truly becomes a home.
HCYR's Foster Care Plus! is also unique in providing a broad array of mentors, including grandparent couples who live in cottages located throughout the village. Grandparents serve to make HCYR's creation of a genuine family complete. |
Weaving ideals into a whole Ideals can come into conflict in trying to design a "one size fits all" system of childcare, especially with 28,000 children in substitute care in Texas. For example, it has long been agreed that "least restrictive" is an ideal in choosing a placement setting. But so is "stability", and this means moving children as few times as possible. The need for professional care and attention doesn't end at the first signs of healing, especially for children with severe trauma from childhood abuse. What HCYR did years ago was to put it all together into a "continuum of care", allowing children to remain in the same community of caregivers as they moved from residential treatment to foster care, so they could maintain long-term relationships with friends, mentors, school teachers and environment, even as they gain freedom, privileges, and normalcy in their social lives. The Foster Care Program -- 2 campuses, 10 homes, 70 beds HCYR has a capacity to care for 120 children at a time -- 50 in Psychiatric Assessment and Residential Treatment, and 70 at the "basic" or "foster care" level. The foster care homes are separate from the RTC homes, and built differently, but children share the educational and recreational facilities, along with staff, teachers, therapists and mentors. The threads of continuity begin with this staffing pattern, so that children who graduate to foster care still see many of the same faces and can continue their relationships as they heal. Foster Care Plus! exists on both ranches. Family-type homes, natural beauty, and educational facilities all blend together to create two unique child-centered villages for basic and moderate level children who have a choice between 10 unique homes with up to 6,000 square feet of living space, including individual rooms for each child. Within these special homes and communities, we carefully place houseparents, grandparents, teachers, and other skilled professionals to love, counsel, teach and care for the children, regardless of their level of need. In the Ingram village, we built homes within walking distance of the Chapel, Community Center, Gym, Swimming Pool, Fine Arts Center, Greenhouse, Horse Barn, Library, Woodworking Shop, and Baseball Field. In the Big Springs Ranch at Leakey, a similar type of village is built on 500 acres along the Frio River, where children can walk safely and easily to the places important to them, including to school, the horse stables, and recreation facilities. The Ed Brune Charter Schools at the Big Springs Ranch serve the educational needs of up to 100 middle school and high school boys and girls from Big Springs Ranch as well as from the Ingram campus and the surrounding communities. Teachers and staff develop lesson plans to address the specific academic needs of each child, many of whose scholastic development suffered during their earlier years. The school program also includes distance learning through teleconferencing, extracurricular sports, PhysEd, Vo-Ag, woodworking and metal shop training, theater arts, fine arts, dance and music. |
Aftercare -- A Lifetime Family In addition to beautiful facilities, loving foster parents and a top-flight educational program for each child, HCYR maintains an aftercare program that strives to stay in contact with graduates through an Alumnae Association, providing scholarships for college students well beyond what is available through PAL and the state tuition system. In addition, HCYR has built an endowment for emergency situations. These are all programs designed to do what families do, and that's to never stop being involved. Annual banquets and reunions provide excitement and keep bonds alive. An Alumnae House, built near a waterfall in a remote canyon at the Big Springs Ranch, is maintained year-round for visits from graduates and their families. |
