Boys Town Home Campus

Take a tour of the Home Campus

In our mission to change the way America cares for her children and families, we provide a continuum of care that strengthens them in mind, body and spirit. Our integrated continuum of family services includes these programs at Boys Town Home Campus:

Boys Town offers an integrated continuum of services that provides children and families with the right care in the right service at the right time. This system is linked in philosophy and in the methods used. To support this integrated continuum, certain fundamental principles, values, and services must cut across all levels of these services and programs. Some of the more important include:

Spirituality/Religious
Helping children and families build a strong spiritual and religious foundation is an important part of Boys Town’s mission. Positive character traits like respect, responsibility, trustworthiness, fairness, caring, and citizenship provide the framework for a child’s value education.

Medical Care
Boys Town owns and operates the Boys Town National Research Hospital, which provides clinical and surgical services to patients from Boys Town’s own programs and for children and families across the country.

Education Services
Education is integral to providing effective treatment for children. In many of the Boys Town residential programs, specialized educational services are embedded within the programs.

Care Coordination
Boys Town attempts to provide the right services to children and families at the right time and in the right program. Boys Town’s Care Coordination programs provide intensive case management services for children in a variety of settings or levels of care.

Click here to learn more about our programs in Spanish.

Treatment Family Homes for Adolescents is a family-style, community-based residential program which can serve six to eight males or females, usually ages 12 to 18. Married couples called Family-Teachers are the primary treatment agents, along with a full-time Assistant Family-Teacher. Family-Teachers are responsible for structured supervision of youth in daily living and treatment activities. The couple and their assistant work on both treatment and skill building in the home, and with community and family resources in the child’s life. A major focus of this program is teaching older youth functional skills – often referred to as independent-living skills – that can help them achieve success in school, their families, and work settings. Boys Town Home Campus has 70 Treatment Family Homes located on 900 acres in Boys Town, Neb.

Campus children attend school either at Boys Town High School or Wegner Middle School located in the village of Boys Town. Both schools offer regular and special-education programs to children in fully accredited school settings and are recognized by the North Central School Accreditation. Each school offers a wide range of extracurricular activities, including inter-scholastic sports, student government, student clubs and music. Junior ROTC is part of the high school curriculum.

Specialized Treatment Foster Care provides a family-style, intensive treatment for up to four boys or girls, typically ages 10 to 18, in a home setting. With the enhanced staffing provided by a Family-Teaching couple and an Assistant Family-Teacher, this program can provide more individual treatment and attention than a Treatment Foster Care home. A major focus of this program is teaching older youth functional skills – often referred to as independent-living skills – that can help them achieve success in school, their families, and work settings. Clinical and medical supervision is an integral part of the program and professionals are available on a 24-hour basis.

Intervention and Assessment Home, located in Grand Island, Neb., provide intervention during crisis situations and the assessment of youth needs. The goal of this short-term residential program is to stabilize youth behavior so youth can safely return home or to their designated placement. Youth work on established treatment plans that address problem areas. Specially trained staff members conduct behavioral assessments and provide referral recommendations and linkages to needed services.

The Intensive Residential Treatment Center is a long-term, 24-hour residential treatment program for youth ages 7 to 18 with psychiatric disorders. The residential program is specifically designed to offer medically directed care for more seriously troubled youth who require supervision, safety and therapy but do not require inpatient psychiatric care. The Center provides round-the-clock supervision, locked/secure facilities and numerous other safety and program features. Typically, youth admitted to the Center are unable to function in normal family or community settings. For many of these high-risk youth, placements in traditional treatment programs have repeatedly failed and reunification with the family shows little promise without stabilizing intervention.

Boys Town Specialized Treatment Group Homes are a medically directed and secure treatment program for youths ages 10 to 18. The Homes provide effective treatment within a family-oriented environment for youth with psychiatric disorders. The program offers the support, care and round-the-clock supervision to enable youth to progress in daily living skills and appropriate healthy socialization. These youth are unable to function in normal family or community settings. The goal of the program is to help children successfully transition to a less restrictive level of care.

Traditional/Agency Foster Care
In Traditional/Agency Foster Care, trained foster parents provide care to youth of all ages – infants through adolescents – who are in need of a safe, permanent placement or a path to a permanent placement. Usually, these children do not require the intensive treatment and intervention that is provided to children in Specialized Treatment Foster Care or Treatment Foster Care. Boys Town recruits and trains agency foster parents, preparing them to welcome children into their homes and provide a caring, nurturing environment. Foster parents receive 24-hour support from Boys Town professionals.

Family Preservation Services is a short-term, six- to eight-week, intensive, in-home program designed to prevent imminent out-of-home placement and keep families together. A Family Consultant spends up to 20 hours a week in a family’s home and community to help parents provide a safe, healthy environment for their children. The Family Consultant focuses on family strengths, helping the family to become self-sufficient and improve parenting techniques. The Family Consultant not only provides interventions in the family’s own home and community, but also links the family to community resources needed to maintain stability. Family Consultants are on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Family-Centered Services is an early intervention program designed to treat and address youth and family problems at home or school. The main goals of this program are to build family strengths, teach new skills, and reduce out-of-home placement of children. This program is for families who need supportive services to address high-risk situations and to prevent early issues from becoming a crisis. Family-Centered Services is also utilized to reduce delinquency or to make court involvement less necessary. Trained Family Consultants offer in-home counseling and skill development to children and families by providing teaching and instruction on specific skills and competencies. Family Consultants are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and work directly with families two to four hours a week for three to six months. Family assistance includes focusing on the child’s behavior and improving parenting and family problem-solving skills, as well as linking families to needed family services.

Aftercare Services are designed to maintain and improve the treatment gains youth made in Boys Town services after youth have left the programs. Aftercare staff work with children who have completed other Boys Town services and help them make smooth transitions back to their families or other environments. Aftercare interventions enable children from a variety of programs to find and maintain success at home, in school, and in their community. For older youth who are continuing their education or entering the work force, staff members provide ongoing support and reinforcement of social and independent-living skills that will help them achieve success.

Outpatient Child and Family Services therapists work with youth ages 6 months to 17 years and their families to assess and treat youth issues. Working with parents, they develop treatment plans for youth who face many difficult problems, including Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), bed-wetting and soiling, anger management, bedtime problems and sleep disorders, out-of-control behaviors, poor peer relationships, learning challenges, anxiety and worry, phobias, depression and habits. Psychologists and therapists create comprehensive approaches to treatment. They actively work with families, primary-care physicians, schoolteachers, and others to extend care beyond the “therapy hour” to ensure long-term success.

Boys Town National Hotline (800.448.3000) was established in 1989 and receives more than 400,000 calls every year. Trained, professional counselors are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Callers’ problems range from relationship and parental discipline issues to depression and suicide. In crisis situations, counselors assist callers and provide community resources and emergency intervention. The Hotline provides referrals to agencies throughout the United States and responds to anyone in need of assistance, with a special focus on children and families. Anyone in a crisis situation, especially children and families, can call 800.448.3000 for help anytime.

Common Sense Parenting^® helps parents to proactively improve their family relationships and their effectiveness as parents. The program is an interactive, skill-based approach to parenting that teaches parents practical and effective ways to increase their children’s positive behaviors, decrease their negative behaviors, and help them learn appropriate alternative behaviors. Parents can attend a six-week or seven-week class. During each session, parents are taught skills that can improve and enhance how they discipline and care for their children. In addition to classes, parents can purchase books and videos they can learn from at home.

Boys Town Press provides proven, effective materials to parents, teachers, and others who need up-to-date skills and knowledge to work with children. It is the publishing division of Boys Town. Since 1994, the Press has produced books, posters, audio and video products, and other resources to assist children, parents, caregivers, educators, and professionals who work with youth and families. Many publications are based on proven educational, parenting, and youth care techniques used in Boys Town programs across the country. The Press also helps to market effective publications and materials produced by others. To purchase products or request a Boys Town Press catalog, call toll free 800.282.6657 or visit www.boystownpress.org.

Parenting.org is an online resource for parents that offers tips, advice, resources, and guidance. More than 50,000 parents view this online resource every month. This Web site (www.parenting.org) is a free service containing practical skill-based materials and information for parents and caregivers of children of all ages.