Placements

We do not accept kids who have the following diagnoses:

• Autism (we can serve those with mild autism, but not moderate to severe autism that requires special services)
• Severe conduct disorder
• Bipolar disorder with psychotic features/hallucinations
• Borderline intellectual functioning
• Schizophrenia
• Intellectual Developmental Disorders
• Extensive alcohol-related birth defects (ARBD), alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorder (ARND), and neurobehavioral disorder associated with prenatal alcohol exposure (ND-PAE)
• Substance Related Addictive Disorders
• Significant history of fire setting or diagnosis of Pyromania

We look closely at any history of runaway and walk offs, particularly in the last 6 months, as our facility has minimal fencing and is near a busy road which can be a safety issue. 

We look closely at any history of self-harm, suicidal ideation, and homicidal ideation/threats particularly in the last 6 months as someone with repeated incidents may be better served at a more intense level of facility. 

We also look at issues of aggression. Does the youth frequently attack peers or adults? We will base these types of behaviors on how we think our current population and staffing will be able to work with said issues. 

The process starts with someone from JPD or DFPS reaching out to our placements team, at the email listed below, and sending us a summary of the kids information along with their common app, psychological, and any other pertinent documentation. 

Once sent, someone from our placement team will review the documentation and we will reply back via email to either deny placement for the child (along with the reasoning for the denial of placement) or to schedule a pre-placement meeting.

We schedule pre-placement meetings to give the child the opportunity to ask questions and get to make a decision if they want to be placed here. It also gives our Case Managers the opportunity to ask additional questions and to gauge whether the child will be a good fit for our program. 

Once the pre-placement meeting is concluded, all information related to the meeting will be presented to our Treatment Director and he will make the final decision. Whatever decision is made, an email will be sent within 12 hours. If placement is approved, it would then be on the placement team to coordinate with our Case Manager for placement date and time. 

For approved placements, we will require the following:

• Shirt/Pant/Shoe size
• Current list of medications (common apps are not always up to date)

Yes, we do have a dress code. Our dress code is as follows:

• All pants and shorts must have belt loops as wearing a belt is required. That means no joggers or athletic shorts can be worn while placed here. 
• All pants and shorts must be free from excessive holes, particularly around the crotch area. 
• We will provide all new residents with shirts that match the dorm they are assigned to (maroon for Eagles dorm and navy for Cougars dorm).
• After a period of time where one displays good behavior, you will be able to wear your own shirts so long as they do not have graphic images, nudity, cuss words, are political or racial in nature, etc. 
• Hats are allowed but are not allowed to be worn indoors.
• Backpacks are also not allowed. All bags are put up in a storage closet. 

 If one is coming but does not have enough clothes, we will provide you with clothes. We want to ensure all of our boys have at least 2 pairs of shoes, 10 t-shirts, and 10 pairs of shorts/pants. Depending on the weather, we will also provide jackets/coats. 

Yes, we do not allow the use of personal electronics. Cell phones and computers are either kept with your case worker or secured in a double locked area and only taken out upon discharge from the facility.

We provide each child with an mp3 player and we control the music that is on the mp3 player to ensure that only positive music is played (no cuss words, nothing related to aggression, etc). The mp3 players are provided as a therapeutic solution that should help calm one down and not amplify negative behaviors. Boys are not allowed to use their own mp3 players. 

We do have a book club. Boys who read at least 20 assigned books are given an Amazon Kindle e-reader that is loaded with ebooks. This device is the boys to keep, it will go with them when they are discharged. The Kindle is only usable by the child who has earned it and they must be within a certain parameter (amount of points within our program) to be able to use it. That parameter is set by good behaviors over a period of time.

Anything that uses batteries or needs to be plugged in will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis but generally if it has bluetooth or wireless internet access then it will not be allowed. 

Nintendo Switches, and other portable gaming systems are not allowed to be used while at our facility. From time to time though, staff may bring their gaming system for the boys to use as a reward but this is not too common. 

We do have an activities center, the red school house, where we have an arcade-style gaming station that our boys are able to use but this is also available only to those who are displaying good behaviors over a period of time. 

Locked down Chromebooks are used in school. Our internet is monitored and filtered and our staff also provide supervision to ensure that schoolwork is being done.