Residential Education: The Need for a New Option

A Forum — February 8, 2002

A trend in the middle of the last century shut down institutional care centers for troubled children and teens, such as orphanages, in favor of individual care programs. Those institutional programs were seen as being abusive, inhumane and having detrimental effects on a youth's ability to integrate into larger society. The current national policy for the care and education of troubled youth provides for only three options: 1) allow the child to remain with the parent or guardian, 2) adopt the child into a new household, or as a last resort, 3) place the child into foster care. Recently, there has been some criticism of the current national policy, claiming that three options are not enough.

The American Youth Policy Forum (AYPF), in conjunction with the Coalition for Residential Education (CORE), sponsored a discussion of a fourth option: boarding schools and residential education programs for disadvantaged youth.

Heidi Goldsmith, Director of CORE, spent five years in Israel, where she was introduced to the Israeli system of residential education. Having seen the success of the Israeli system, she founded CORE and the International Center for Residential Education in order to support a similar system in the United States. Goldsmith stated that in a perfect world, all parents would love and care for their children, all schools would provide a good education and support their students, and children would not need any foster or institutional care. Unfortunately, this is not a perfect world, and there are cases where the current system is not sufficient.

According to Goldsmith, the current national system places children in "what looks like a family," when what children need is "what acts like a family." She does not advocate shutting down the foster care system, rather, she argues that a system of boarding schools, which provide education and mentoring to disadvantaged youth, are necessary as an alternative to foster care. These boarding schools create a family style setting, where the young people are surrounded by others in their situation. Counselors or house parents take the role of a second parent in order to guide the children into adulthood. The International Center for Residential Education provides a network of ideas and information for the twenty such boarding schools around the country. In her work Heidi Goldsmith adheres to the motto, "What your family can't provide for you, your community will."

The Honorable James R. Milliken is the founder of one such boarding school in San Diego, CA, the San Pasqual Academy. Milliken, a Judge in the San Diego County Superior Court, has had first hand experience with the current laws governing the placement of troubled youths. According to Milliken, 80% of foster care children were separated from parents who were abusing drugs or alcohol. Half of those children are eventually reunited with their parents, while 30% are adopted. That leaves 20% of those children in foster care. In a foster care program, a child may be moved from foster home to foster home several times in one year. Children in such situations are not able to develop normal child/parent bonds necessary for social development. Additionally, after 12 months in foster care, it becomes increasingly unlikely that the child will be adopted, and after the age of 14, a child is considered un-adoptable.

Through a public/private partnership of Title IV E funds and private dollars, Milliken established the San Pasqual Academy. The Academy operates as an ordinary public school, following the San Diego County curriculum, while using public funds to house and provide mentoring and guidance for students. It is a totally voluntary program; students must meet certain criteria and must be not worse than three years behind. Currently, San Pasqual Academy houses 75 students, and has plans to enroll another 175.

Heidi Goldsmith stated that public/private partnership schools cost roughly $20,000 to $30,000 per student per year, half the cost of juvenile detention, and almost one-third the cost of a psychiatric institute. "If we can provide boarding schools for wealthy children, why can't we provide it for those children who truly need it?" asked Heidi Goldsmith.

"Pay me now or pay me later," said Father Leo Armbrust, founder of Renaissance Village, Inc., a residential school to be opened in 2004 in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Renaissance Village is set on a golf course, where the students will maintain and operate a golf course, receiving vocational training and academic instruction from the school. The golf course is paid for privately, and it's profits are used to fund the school. Father Armbrust stated that the community must either accept responsibility for a child and provide an education and encouragement for that child, or accept the cost of not aiding the child and the possibility that the child will become involved in criminal activities. He hopes that by providing a sense of dignity along with an education will steer children into productive lives.

One such young man was John Howie, a student at the Scotland School for Veterans' Children. While his academic record was good, he was having behavioral problems at his school. When he was in 6th grade, his mother enrolled him at Scotland. Howie admitted that it took him two years to adjust to the new school, but without it he is certain that he would not have the opportunities that he has now. His new school provides extra curricular activities, guidance from cottage parents, and structured environment conducive to learning. He is currently on the school's basketball team, track team, and is president of the sophomore class.

While all of these schools and programs have their share of success stories, there is currently no study on the effect of such environments. Most of the schools are still relatively young, the oldest, the Happy Hill Farm Academy, was founded in 1975, and have limited, if any, alumni records. The Coalition for Residential Education, along with the several of the schools, is hoping to establish alumni support programs and to continue providing mentoring and guidance for their graduates in college and in the work force. They ask that policymakers help them by supporting evaluations of programs, providing funding, and changing the current policies on youth placement in foster care.

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