A Place to Call Home

“I was taken from my home when I was six because my parents abused me and my brother. My first foster home was pretty good, but when my foster dad died, my brother and I had to leave. My brother and I went to separate foster homes, and I was angry because I didn’t get to see Billy. I guess I gave them a pretty hard time. When they kicked me out, I kept bombing out of one foster home after another. That’s when I finally came to Robins’ Nest group home, and for the first time, I found a real home where I felt I really belonged.”

For children growing up without parents, life can be traumatic and painful. As a result, many of these children develop self-destructive behaviors making it difficult to function at home, in school and in the community. For such children, the group home for girls and the specialized foster care program provide a community-based environment in a family-type setting which blends psycho-therapeutic clinical services with the nurturing and structure to help them turn their lives around and become contributing members of the community.

Staff in the agency’s two residential programs, which cared for 22 children in 2004, recognize that each child is unique; thus, the treatment team develops an individualized service plan based upon each child’s history, strengths, emotional and behavioral problems, cultural background, and personal hopes and dreams. Individual, group and family therapy helps resolve family conflict and promote healing. Counselors supplement clinical treatment through daily counseling and goal-setting, skills-building, and modeling to ensure that each resident’s physical, emotional, social, intellectual, vocational and spiritual needs are met.

The program helps each resident develop a sense of self-esteem, which is important for children whose past experience was not affirming. Staff utilize each resident’s creative or athletic interests to build a sense of self, and guide each resident to give back to the community by becoming a volunteer for another organization that helps children, the elderly, and other vulnerable members of the community.