Population: The Boys Program of the Northwest Children’s Home serves males ages 11-17 who are emotionally impacted by trauma, exhibit maladaptive behavior, may be cognitively challenged, or have other types of psychiatric diagnosis.
NCH operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days per year. In addition to this, our on-campus school operates the traditional school year as well as offering summer session courses. Our mission is to provide exceptional rehabilitative, therapeutic and educational services for children and families.
A goal of treatment at NCH is to create lasting change in adolescent experience of themselves, healthy relationships, and the world around them. Our treatment team is comprised of caring, compassionate professionals who recognize our clients’ behaviors as products of severe trauma.
NCH is currently enhancing services with more clinical orientation, structured programming in the separate houses, and transformation of attitudes through a Trauma Informed approach. Staff and administration are being educated on how to evaluate the youth in a more comprehensive way, allowing for more thorough and individualized interventions.
The Boys’ Program is comprised of both the Vision and Quest House. The two programs utilize a Continuum of Care that encourages greater levels of independence in our residents. Our focus includes stabilization, assisting the youth in developing effective, safe coping strategies, increasing pro-social skills, and improving their ability to maintain successfully through a daily living routine. Residents are provided a “staff advocate” that rotates on a bi-monthly basis. The purpose of having a “Staff Advocate” is to further assist building positive, client/staff relationships, through one on one interaction. The Boys’ Program, and NCH as a whole, view positive relationships between residents and staff as one of the most important factors in creating a safe, predictable, nurturing treatment environment. We believe that our residents are more likely to be engaged and successful in treatment when they establish healthy, pro-social relationships.
The Quest Program is a residential home for teenage boys. The residents of this program have lower risk behaviors. This is determined by their motivation in treatment, trust building, and ability to emotionally regulate. This is measured by daily treatment outcome measurements, staff feedback, etc.
At Quest, the building dynamics as well as the program dynamics are different in comparison to the Vision Program. Due to the lower acuity, the residents of the Quest Program are afforded specific privileges exclusive to this house. The residents are able to utilize an in-house “gaming room”, two treatment milieus, as well as a newly upgraded basketball court located behind the house. Additionally, the residents have more opportunity to interact with their community. While residents of higher acuity programs may have similar opportunities, their options are more limited and would require the resident to demonstrate trusting behaviors that are deemed suitable by the treatment team.
The shift toward Trauma Informed Care has helped educate our staff on the importance of understanding client maladaptive behavior as adaptations, or ways of survival. The therapeutic milieu uses relational strategies and positive behavior reinforcement to support the development of healthy and effective modes of communication and coping skills.
Therapeutic treatment groups are a crucial part of the program. The therapeutic groups are scheduled into the treatment program with purpose and currently include: Community Meeting, Boys Council, Process Group, Phase Work/Writing Group, Virtues, Goals Group, and Hot Topic (a group that addresses current social/development issues for the population we serve). Additionally, our program therapists hold two group therapy sessions during the week where the Quest and Vision residents come together and talk about an array of topics related to treatment objectives.