Over a full century of service, Boys Town has imprinted itself on the national consciousness in almost Normal Rockwell-like vignettes, of youthful males brought in from the cold for hot soup in front of a roaring fireplace.
For Boys Town Louisiana, reality is a very different picture – and one that includes plenty of girls and families as well.
“We take a holistic approach in that we serve the entire family,” explained Rashain Carriere Williams, executive director of Boys Town Louisiana. “We look at the entire home situation and assess the entire family. We find out what their stresses are, and develop care programs and goals with the family.”
Following its Continuum of Care model, Boys Town’s programs begin with Early Head Start childhood education, and also include parenting programs and other parental support.
“We have an evidence-based parenting curriculum, and we teach it in a classroom format,” Williams elaborated. “We cover topics like communication, having a routine, having rules and structure in the home.”
One key aspect is instructing parents on how to correct their children’s behavior effectively. “We teach appropriate ways to set consequences and follow through,” she said. “And we also teach how to praise youth. We give parents a few more tools for their tool belts.”
Additional family support comes in the form of helping the adults get access to housing, health care, and jobs and job training. Many of Boys Town’s client families include parents working gig jobs or in the hospitality industry, sectors that were vulnerable before the pandemic and continue to struggle.
Boys Town may be best known for its group houses for young people. The local organization operates three such homes, two for boys and one for girls. Up to six youths, ranging in age from 12 to 17, live in each facility. They come from family situations that are simply no longer viable for them to live in.
“This is a difficult age to place children in foster care,” noted Williams. “Many of them have gone from home to home, and do not have any supportive relatives who can take care of them. They have experienced trauma, abuse and neglect.”
The Boys Town homes emphasize a family environment, with normal home features like kitchens and living rooms. Each home is managed by live-in married couples who have been trained specifically for the responsibility. The young residents go to regular schools and engage in extra-curricular activities just like any other children their age.
However, this is augmented by therapy and specialized training. “A lot of the kids have learned anti-social ways to get their needs met,” Williams related, “so we teach social skills like having respectful conversations, disagreeing appropriately, accepting consequences. We ultimately want to nurture and develop successful adults.”
Williams added that in some ways, working with the residents at the facilities is easier than serving youth who remain with their own families. “The at-home population is more susceptible to peer influences, to getting in trouble in school.”
Despite this reality, Boys Town prefers to have the children living with parents or other family members. When a young person is able to return to such a setting, the organization continues to stay engaged and provide services. Even when participants age out of the programs, communications remain open, and the agency works to link them to opportunities such as workforce development training.
“We can meet the child wherever they are,” Williams stated firmly.
Much of Boys Town’s clientele comes from contracts with the State of Louisiana, via the juvenile justice and foster care systems. This is augmented by local parish courts and other referrals. Williams reported that they typically serve about 200 children at any given time, and about 600 over the course of a year.
While Boys Town is clearly a direct-service agency, with a primary focus on what Williams described as “kids in crisis,” she also sees a much larger objective for the organization. “Our mission,” she proclaimed, “is to change the way America cares for our children and our families.”
