Residential Child Care
What is residential child care?
Residential child care includes the care, custody, supervision, assessment, training, education or treatment of an unrelated child or children (17 years old or younger) for 24 hours a day in a place other than the child’s own home.
What qualifies us to provide residential child care?
The State of Texas Health and Human Services Commission sets the requirements for a licensed residential child care provider.
This includes a stringent application process, federal background checks and regular inspections to ensure strict health and safety standards are maintained.
No child is turned away because of race, sex, religion, nationality, sexual orientation or because their family does not have money to pay for care.
Does that mean we're a foster home?
While we are licensed to provide care to children who are in foster care, we primarily serve children and families who are experiencing crisis or conflict; this may include issues ranging from addiction, abuse or incarceration.
These parents or guardians need support, but their children are not under the care of the state. Our program allows the current guardian to maintain lawful guardianship while the child lives at Boys and Girls Country. This is known as a private placement.
Private placement means we’re not an orphanage, and our children often return to live with their legal guardians taking with them the skills and knowledge they gained at Boys and Girls Country.
Our Program
We use a holistic, trauma-informed approach to residential care that caters to the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of each child. Our care model follows Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI®) which is designed to meet the unique needs of children who have experienced early-childhood trauma.
Our residential program is nationally accredited through the Council of Accreditation (COA). Ensuring the mental and physical safety of the children in our care is our top priority, and residential decisions are made based on each child’s individual needs.
What Our Residential Child Care Looks Like
Children under 18 live on campus in cottages with trained houseparents and attend local public schools. We encourage all our residents to participate in extra-curricular activities including athletics, choir, art and more.
Each cottage operates as an independent family unit. This includes preparing meals, doing chores and attending vacations together. Cottages can host up to eight children who are cared for by two full-time houseparents on a 24-hour basis.
Our family-centered cottages provide a safe, structured family environment that helps prevent and resolve social and emotional issues using long-term goals. This provides children with the opportunity to build healthy relationships through stability and communication.
Boys and Girls Country also works with legal guardians and caregivers to offer trauma-informed care education and training, aiming for family reunification and generational healing.
Healing Future Generations
Each child is assigned a case manager who is responsible for designing, implementing and maintaining a customized treatment plan based on their individual needs.
Most of our children come to us having experienced housing and food insecurity, along with abuse or neglect. These experiences can result in various behavior and developmental delays. Many of our children also have untreated or undiagnosed conditions like ADHD, depression and anxiety prior to their arrival at Boys and Girls Country.
Each child receives several evaluations after placement by licensed professionals. These include psychological and functional assessments.
We use the Child and Adolescent Functional Assessment Scale (CAFAS®) to assess a child’s day-to-day functioning. This assessment helps case managers create a customized treatment plan and provides indicators to track developmental growth and progress.
Children receive counseling from licensed counselors and psychiatrists while in our care to provide support on their path to healing past trauma.
Providing Bright Futures
Our children attend local public schools and have access to an on-site student learning center.
Tutoring and credit recovery are also available for students who are academically behind, ensuring they have the chance to finish their general education and graduate alongside their peers.
Before their high school graduation, we collaborate with each child to develop a Continuum of Care plan. This plan enables them to join our College and Career program, offering the chance to pursue a college degree, obtain a technical certificate, enlist in the military or start their career. They can pursue these paths with ongoing financial and emotional support, without facing the stressors of starting over once they turn 18.
