These stories are the first part of a four-part series about the national operation of Girls and

Boys Town, formerly known as Boys Town.

Copyright 2001 Omaha World-Herald
Reprinted with permission
September 2, 2001, Sunday SUNRISE EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 1A
HEADLINE: Father Flanagan's methods reach across U.S.
By Stephen Buttry
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
PHILADELPHIA A broken home, a broken world and a broken heart illustrate the poster the
17-year-old girl has painted.
"You must learn to make it on the broken pieces," says the poster. "My
pieces may be broken but I am going on anyhow."
The girl's broken life brought her to the Girls and Boys Town detention
shelter in Philadelphia's dilapidated Kensington neighborhood. In a former
convent, tucked among red-brick row houses painted with graffiti, the girl is
learning how to make it on the broken pieces.
Eighty-plus years and a thousand-plus miles from Father Flanagan's Home for
Boys, Philadelphia's juvenile courts sent the girl to this branch of Omaha's
haven for troubled youths.
Philadelphia is one of a dozen metro areas where Girls and Boys Town
programs try to mend the broken pieces of America's youth using methods that
grew from the famed father's Omaha home. In hundreds of communities, social
workers and teachers trained by Girls and Boys Town use those methods in
agencies and schools.
Boys Town has grown far beyond the orphanage that Spencer Tracy and Mickey
Rooney made famous in their 1938 film and the village that the Rev. Edward
Flanagan built on farmland that used to lie west of Omaha.
In the 21st century, Girls and Boys Town has both an inclusive name and an
expansive reach.
From Philadelphia to San Antonio to Los Angeles, the venerable Omaha
institution is helping youths whose lives have been shattered by every curse of
modern society.
Most girls who come to Philadelphia shelter have sexually transmitted
diseases. Many face charges of assault, burglary, prostitution or dealing drugs.

Girls and Boys Town's blend of structure, teaching, discipline and compassion
helped mend the broken pieces for Sophan Sok, who came to the shelter in May on
an assault charge.
"I'd never really had a chance to sit down with an adult and talk like that,"
said Sok, who just turned 18 and is starting her freshman year at Temple
University. "It made me think a lot. I became a bit wiser."
Copyright 2001 Omaha World-Herald
Reprinted with permission
September 2, 2001, Sunday SUNRISE EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 16A
HEADLINE: More cities invest in Girls and Boys Town's methods
By Stephen Buttry and Jake Thompson
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITERS
PHILADELPHIA Walk into a Girls and Boys Town home or shelter, and youths greet you
again and again.
"Hi," several girls said in turn as they greeted recent visitors to the
Philadelphia detention shelter for girls. Each introduced herself and said,
"Welcome to Boys Town." (Even in this all-girls shelter, the historic name
persists in conversation.)
At Girls and Boys Town homes and shelters from coast to coast, each smile
and every handshake reflects the joint efforts of your tax dollars and Father
Flanagan's time-honored techniques.
Long before President Bush called for faith-based programs to help the
government address social problems, the Omaha institution was aiding public
agencies across the nation.
Juvenile courts, child welfare agencies and public schools are paying
millions of dollars each year for youth care and training from Girls and Boys
Town. The organization, in turn, promises to change the behavior of troubled
youths by teaching them skills as simple as eye contact and a firm handshake.
About one-third of Girls and Boys Town's operating costs comes from taxes,
most of it federal money spent by state and local agencies. As Bush's initiative
seeks to bring public and private agencies closer together, Girls and Boys Town
is well-positioned to continue its nationwide expansion of the past 18 years.
The institution's spread from its Omaha base has been a joint venture with
public agencies in such scattered cities as Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San
Antonio and Orlando, Fla. Operations in a dozen metro areas outside the Midlands
cost about $ 57 million last year. New programs will open in Phoenix and Newark,

N.J., in the next few years.

The Rev. Val Peter, Girls and Boys Town's executive director, ties the
national expansion to the original goals of the Rev. Edward Flanagan. Flanagan
told Spencer Tracy, who portrayed the priest in two movies, that he would "like
to start a Boys Town in every state," Peter told a Los Angeles audience last
year.
"He had so many dreams, it's taken us a long time to get to all of them,"
Peter said.
Growing Trend
The use of private agencies in dealing with the nation's troubled youths is
growing. Girls and Boys Town officials cite the same reasons as public officials
for that growth: need, costs and results.
Overcrowding at Philadelphia's Youth Studies Center forced the city to
contract with private agencies to operate detention shelters for youths. The
city pays $ 136 a day for each of up to 18 girls at a time at Girls and Boys
Town, less than half the cost at the Youth Studies Center.
Philadelphia paid $ 925,000 in tax money to Girls and Boys Town for its work
with delinquent girls in the last fiscal year.
"Everyone who visits Girls and Boys Town comes back marveling at the
behavior of the girls," said Jim Randolph, court and community services director
for Philadelphia's Division of Juvenile Justice. Randolph is pleased enough with
the results that he has asked Girls and Boys Town to open a second shelter.
A team studying female programs for the federal Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Programs echoed Randolph's praise. The team cited the
Philadelphia home in 1998 as one of seven model programs for girls.
Del Elliott, a former Boys Town consultant who heads two University of
Colorado programs studying violence and problem behavior, said, "Among the
programs that are implemented on a large scale, this is the very best of the
behavior-modification type programs."
Girls and Boys Town has plenty of critics, though.
Some experts in children's welfare don't like the residential programs that
Girls and Boys Town uses: emergency shelters and detention centers that house up
to 18 children at a time for an average of 21 days and group homes, where up to
six children live with a married couple for an average of 18 months.

"They're McOrphanages," said Richard Wexler, head of the National Coalition

for Children Protection Reform. "I don't care how plush the teddy bears are,
these are still institutions."
Wexler contends that shelters and group homes are harmful because the youths
know they are in a temporary parking place. Once removed from their homes,
children should go directly into the care of a family member or guardian or into
a foster home, he said.
Carole Shauffer, executive director of the Youth Law Center, said Girls and
Boys Town shelters and homes are effective for youths who cannot be placed with
families. However, she said, agencies following the Girls and Boys Town model
sometimes use it with "kids for whom it is not necessary and therefore not
appropriate."
Lisa Paine-Wells, who works in the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Family to
Family initiative, particularly dislikes emergency shelters.
The crises that bring youths to the shelters are "just a horribly disruptive
time for a child and to put them in an institution is even more disruptive,"
Paine-Wells said. "I'm not trying to say the staff of these places are bad. They
tend to serve the needs of adults; they don't serve the needs of kids."
Elliott said studies have shown that Girls and Boys Town's family homes are
effective but that the changes in behavior often do not last after children
leave that controlled environment.
Girls and Boys Town data show sharp reductions in depression, criminal
activity and verbal and physical aggression while youths are in the programs.
Peter said a nationwide movement away from youth-care institutions
threatened Boys Town's future in the 1970s, when the organization also was
reeling from a controversy over its wealthy endowment.
"People told us you should close Boys Town - this large campus won't work,"
said Peter, who joined Boys Town in 1984. Instead, the organization refined its
methods and converted from dormitories to group homes.
Interim Placement
The first operation outside Omaha opened in Tallahassee, Fla., in 1983.
Peter became executive director two years later. He has opened programs in 11
more metro areas, as well as Glenwood, Iowa, and Grand Island, Neb.
"I said, 'We're going to put the pedal to the metal. We're going to
expand,'" Peter said.

In most communities, Girls and Boys Town opens a shelter first, either an
emergency shelter for runaways and other abused and troubled youths or a
detention shelter like the Philadelphia facility for youths accused of crimes.
The private agency houses youths for a few weeks while courts and social workers
try to find appropriate long-term placements.
"You get to look at them and say, 'Where would this child best be served?'"
Peter said.
Girls and Boys Town officials agree that most children should be with their
parents or other relatives or in a foster home. The organization offers programs
in several cities that work with youths in their parents' homes or foster homes.
Several youths interviewed at Girls and Boys Town shelters and group homes
showed acute awareness of the transient nature of their stays. The youths
appreciated the skills they had learned and praised their treatment, but most
knew exactly how many days they had been at the facility.
"Even despite the abuse they may feel, they do want to go home," said
Richard Baez, program director at an emergency shelter in Long Beach, Calif.
As Baez spoke, walls shook with a pounding that sounded as though workers
were remodeling with heavy equipment.
A 12-year-old boy's foster home had fallen through. The boy raged for
several minutes, pounding walls and doors in frustration. Later, he politely
greeted a visitor, extending his hand and saying, "Welcome to Boys Town."
Many of the youths in the emergency shelters "have multiple failed
placements," Baez said. "The consequences of their behavior have made it
difficult to find a home."
State and local inspectors around the country generally praise Girls and
Boys Town.
The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice gave the shelter for teen-agers
outside Orlando the state's highest scores of 11 nonsecure detention centers in
1998 and 1999.
In another category, prevention programs for children and families in need
of services, Girls and Boys Town of Central Florida ranked fourth of 31 programs
in 2000.
"The program has established an excellent 'culture' with the youth and
staff," last year's state inspection team wrote about the central Florida

shelter.
Pennsylvania officials found no violations in recent inspections.
Officials in Orange County, Calif., and in Georgia, Texas and Nebraska
faulted Girls and Boys Town last year for several violations, including sloppy
record keeping and failure to provide required medical examinations.
An investigation in July 2000 faulted the family teachers at one group home
in Trabuco Canyon, Calif., for allowing rough horseplay and failing to prevent
an incident when one boy slammed another's head into a door several times.
Girls and Boys Town officials addressed those problems and kept their state
licenses.
Last year's inspections of five programs in New Orleans found 205
deficiencies but allowed the programs to continue under a provisional license
pending a follow-up visit. State inspector Debra Joseph faulted the programs for
lack of required staff training and failure to spell out such procedures as
contacting parents and handling medications. Some employees' files did not show
that Girls and Boys Town had conducted required criminal record checks.
Maudelle Cade, Girls and Boys Town site director in New Orleans, said the
citations "do not indicate a lack of quality of services to the children." She
is awaiting the state report on a June inspection, which she thinks will show
the programs in full compliance.
'I Can Become More'
Though the Philadelphia girls are officially in detention, the facility and
program differ little from other Girls and Boys Town shelters where youths are
not detained. The kitchen, dining room, lounge and living room could easily
belong to a sorority house.
"It wasn't what I expected. It looked like a home," said Sophan Sok, who was
transferred to Girls and Boys Town from the city detention center on an assault
charge in May.
Girls stay an average of 22 days, awaiting court hearings that will return
them home or place them in long-term facilities.
Though the shelters have youths for only a short time, the youths' desperate
situations provide an opportunity, said Steve Gunter, program operations manager
for Girls and Boys Town of Southern California. "You get kids coming in when
they're at a point in their life when they're ready for something different and
they get treated differently and they start making different choices."

Angela McDowell was at such a point when she spent two weeks at the Long
Beach shelter as a 17-year-old whose mother could not control her. Once headed
for prison, drugs or other hard times, she is now in the Job Corps and aspiring
to a career as a social worker or psychologist.
"They helped me realize that I can become more," McDowell said. The workers
at Girls and Boys Town "give everybody a chance and they don't doubt that you
can be your best."
McDowell and several other youths interviewed said they initially thought
little of the greeting skills they were taught and required to practice. But
they were surprised at how differently adults regarded them after polite
greetings.
The greetings are part of a broad program of teaching skills as basic as
hygiene and as difficult as dealing with frustration and accepting consequences.
While the youths learn to be polite, they also learn how to speak their
minds. Workers teach them to disagree appropriately. "I'm asking for them to
advocate for themselves in a way that they can be heard," said Salma Choudhury,
program director for Girls and Boys Town of Philadelphia.
Staff members teach and practice social skills with the youths in calm
moments, then remind them before and during difficult times to use the skills.
By practicing and using skills, youths earn points on cards they always
carry. Misbehavior earns negative points. As workers correct the behavior, they
give the youths the chance to earn back up to half of the points lost. Youths
can cash in points for privileges or merchandise.
As visitors entered the Philadelphia lounge recently, some girls earned a
thousand points, looking the visitors in the eye, speaking clearly and shaking
hands firmly.
One girl looked down as she greeted the visitors and practically whispered.
She wasn't greeting properly, but John Daniel, an executive visiting from the
Omaha headquarters, recognized how difficult it was for her to approach a
stranger. Youth care workers later would encourage her in practice sessions to
speak up and make eye contact, but Daniel's immediate goal was to affirm her
progress.
"What's your name?" he asked, leaning forward to hear her repeat it softly.
"That's a beautiful name," he said, asking who braided her cornrows. She
answered a bit louder, and he complimented the look.

Small Steps Praised

One girl didn't rise to greet the visitors. She sleeps through much of each
day, sedated by a drug to control her seizure disorder. "She's 17 years old and
she's missing her whole education," Choudhury explained later.
Another girl didn't rise but said "hi" from her seat. She was testing
limits, Choudhury said later.
Reflecting Father Flanagan's technique of "catching kids doing good," a
youth care worker praised the girl for at least acknowledging the visitor. Even
in correcting, Girls and Boys Town workers look for the smallest steps to
praise.
Then came the correction. As other girls continued greeting the visitors,
the worker started explaining that the girl should have stood, extended her hand
and introduced herself.
The girl stepped to the center of the room, insisting she did greet
appropriately. That would bring another penalty for not accepting consequences.
First the worker had to defuse the developing scene. She told the girl to move
to a corner, where they could talk more privately. The girl complied, drawing
praise and earning back some points.
Choudhury watched carefully as one 15-year-old girl greeted the visitors.
The girl was anxious about a coming court hearing. Before the visitors arrived,
several girls were in the dining room and the 15-year-old cursed a
lighter-skinned girl, saying, "Just because you're white, you think you're so
good."
Choudhury penalized her for not showing respect, and the girl lost her
temper, cursing more. Choudhury quickly called her into the kitchen, away from
the other girls.
In the kitchen, the administrator first praised the girl for following the
instruction to leave the dining room. Choudhury acknowledged that the girl has
seen plenty of racial unfairness but she explained that the other girl won her
privileges because of specific positive behavior, not her light skin.
As the visitors arrived, Choudhury left the girl with a youth care worker,
telling her to practice self-control skills. When the visitors entered the
kitchen, the girl extended her hand to welcome them.
Greeting skills that seem elementary to a visitor are essential to the staff
of Girls and Boys Town. "Whassup!" may suffice on the streets, said Daniel,
associate executive director in charge of Girls and Boys Town USA, but these

youths need to succeed beyond the streets.

Choudhury explained, "Just teaching these kids to introduce themselves
teaches them how to interact with the
Girls and Boys Town in 2000
$ 159,752,000--Operating expenses.
$ 39,931,000--Gifts, legacies and bequests.
$ 771.7 million --Balance in Father Flanagan's Trust Fund on Dec. 31, 2000.
$ 6,892,790--Federal funds received.
7,353--Youths served in programs outside Midlands.
861--Youths who lived on the home campus.
30,862--Youths served through programs in Omaha, Grand Island, Neb., and
Glenwood, Iowa.
48--Percent of youths served who are girls.
238,934--Calls to National Hotline.
Source: Girls and Boys Town annual reports.
Girls and Boys Town's reach
1. Central Florida, 1986 (Orlando area.)
2. North Florida, 1983 (Tallahassee)
3. South Florida, 1991 (W. Palm Beach)
4. Georgia, 1994 (Atlanta)
5. Washington, D.C. 1993
6. Philadelphia, 1993
7. New York, 1990
8. New England, 1991 (Portsmouth, RI)

9. New Orleans, 1989

10. San Antonio, 1989
11. Glenwood, Iowa, 1989
12. Grand Island, 1989
13. Las Vegas, 1991
14. Southern California, 1991 (L.A. and Orange Counties)
15. Omaha, 1917
GRAPHIC: B&W Photo/1 John Daniel, associate executive director in charge of
Girls and Boys Town USA, and Salma Choudhury, program director for Girls and
Boys Town of Philadelphia, say Father Flanagan's technique of "catching kids
doing good" has proved effective there. Philadelphia paid $ 925,000 in tax money
to Girls and Boys Town for its work with delinquent girls in the last fiscal
year and has asked for a second shelter. Mugs/2 Angela McDowell Salma Choudhury
Map/1; STEPHEN BUTTRY/THE WORLD-HERALD/3, The World-Herald
Copyright 2001 Omaha World-Herald
Reprinted with permission
September 2, 2001, Sunday SUNRISE EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 17A
HEADLINE: Lessons help girl face life
By Stephen Buttry
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
LONG BEACH, Calif. Akilah was ready to stop running. No more "awolling."
To a 15-year-old chronic runaway, the old military acronym for "absent
without leave" becomes a verb. And a way of life.
A life in institutions and foster homes teaches a child the jargon of the
social service system. Akilah explained that she had spent 14 years in
"placement."
Another round of awolling brought her to the Long Beach emergency shelter of
Girls and Boys Town.
She learned new jargon here: Achievement. Positive feedback. Good
decision-making. Good peer relations. Life skills. Respect.
A "Youth of the Week" certificate hanging in her room showed that Akilah had

learned more than jargon. As she showed a visitor through the shelter, she
explained and showed what she had learned in just two weeks. She greeted
visitors with eye contact, a smile, a firm handshake and a pleasant
introduction.
"This made me respect myself," she said.
She explained that her positive behavior earned her 4,475 points the
previous day. With 10,000 points, she can could earn a prize.
A radio on her night stand represented the last points she redeemed. Next to
the radio were a Bible and a copy of the Lord's Prayer. A bulletin board above
her bed displayed computer-generated illustrations and plastic bags containing
sand from an outing to Hermosa Beach.
At Girls and Boys Town, Akilah learned a new acronym:SODAS.
SODAS helped her decide not to awol. It stands for Situation, Options,
Disadvantages, Advantages, Solutions.
A situation might be that a friend would invite Akilah to awol. Before
coming to Girls and Boys Town, that was a simple decision. "I was just like,
'You want to awol?' Sure. And we'd go."
Instead, Akilah would consider three options. One would be to say yes. One
would be to say no. One might be to run off for a couple of hours, then return.
For each option, she outlined disadvantages and advantages, something she never
used to consider.
"Consequences? That was nothing to me."
Now she considers consequences. Short-term consequences such as negative
points that could thwart her plans to use her points to buy a Walkman. And
long-term consequences such as "Do I really want to finish high school and go to
college?"
This girl who used to run away impulsively began focusing on a long-term
goal: "I want to be a criminal defense lawyer."
Awolling would interfere with that goal, so Akilah's solution would be to
say no. Though her stay at this shelter would last only about a month before the
system found a more lasting placement, Akilah thought the lessons she learned at
Girls and Boys Town would be permanent.
She wanted to be a role model, rather than a runaway.

"I want to be somebody everybody will look up to and say, 'She was in foster
care? She was in Boys Town?'"
Copyright 2001 Omaha World-Herald
Reprinted with permission
September 2, 2001, Sunday SUNRISE EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 17A
HEADLINE: Financing keeps pace as demands on agency grow
By Stephen Buttry
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
Benefactors, investments and taxpayers combine to finance the growing
national operation of Girls and Boys Town.
An endowment fund and annual fund-raising operations have provided more than
$ 200 million of the $ 330 million spent since the 1980s on a dozen Girls and
Boys Town locations outside the Midlands, according to annual statements
published by the organization.
About one-third of Girls and Boys Town's money comes from taxpayers, mostly
federal funds distributed by state and local agencies for services provided to
troubled youths.
The figures reflect a turnaround in the Boys Town operation over the past 30
years. A financial scandal in 1972 shook the revered institution after the Omaha
Sun reported that fund-raising and investments were bringing in four times as
much money annually as the agency was spending on children.
That changed in the mid-1970s with the expensive conversion of housing in
the Omaha village from dormitories to family-style group homes and with the
opening of the Boys Town National Research Hospital. The expansion into other
cities around the country began in the 1980s.
Last year Girls and Boys Town spent $ 160 million in all, more than the
combined total of gifts ($ 40 million) and income from the endowment fund ($ 97
million).
For several years, the organization received conflicting ratings from two
groups that evaluated charitable organizations. The National Charities
Information Bureau faulted Boys Town for not spending enough of its investment
assets. The Better Business Bureau's Philanthropic Advisory Service said Boys
Town did meet its standards.
Those two organizations have merged and Boys Town meets the current
standards of the BBB Wise Giving Alliance. The organization is evaluating its
standards and may change them this fall, said chief operating officer Bennett

Weiner.
Forbes and Smart Money magazines ranked Girls and Boys Town as one of the
nation's most efficient major charitable organizations, spending 85 percent of
its money on programs and only 15 percent on fund raising.
The annual financial statement of Girls and Boys Town says that Father
Flanagan's Trust Fund reinvests enough of its income each year to allow it to
grow with inflation. Last year the fund spent $ 41 million on operations and
reinvested $ 56 million. The Dec. 31 balance was $ 772 million.
"We're trying to apply the best management strategies of the business world
to a child-care organization," said the Rev. Val Peter, executive director.
He said the headquarters plans for new operations to receive heavy subsidies
at first but eventually to receive substantial income from local agencies. "Then
that frees up money for another project," Peter said.
Last year, the national operations received 38 percent of their revenue from
fees for services.
Forms filed with the Internal Revenue Service show that Girls and Boys Town
operations, including the Omaha campus, received nearly $ 7 million directly
from federal agencies in 2000.
Spending for programs around the country grew by 12 percent last year,
reaching about $ 57 million, but still does not match the operations in Omaha,
where the Rev. Edward Flanagan founded his home for boys in 1917.
Last year Girls and Boys Town spent $ 28 million for the village in west
Omaha, $ 35 million for the Boys Town National Research Hospital and $ 16
million for the National Resource and Training Center in Omaha.
All of the national programs are growing. The only Girls and Boys Town
program that didn't spend more in 2000 than in 1999 was Girls and Boys Town of
Georgia, which spent $ 1.1 million in 1999 on a capital project. Program
expenses at the Atlanta site more than doubled last year. Spending at the
programs in New Orleans and New York grew by more than 50 percent last year.

These stories are the second part of a four-part series about the national operation
of Girls and Boys Town, formerly known as Boys Town.
Copyright 2001 Omaha World-Herald
Reprinted with permission
September 3, 2001, Monday SUNRISE EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 1A
HEADLINE: Opponents in D.C. call Boys Town a bad neighbor
By Jake Thompson and Stephen Buttry
WORLD-HERALD BUREAU
WASHINGTON Girls and Boys Town's leaders made her so mad that Ellen OpperWeiner bolted awake one night.
For months she and dozens of other local citizens had traded complaints,
accusations and name-calling with Girls and Boys Town officials over the
Omaha-based organization's plans for a new youth facility 12 blocks southeast of
the Capitol.
But Opper-Weiner and the others had found no legal grounds to block or scale
down the emergency shelter and four group homes planned in their neighborhood of
old brick townhouses.
Now as she awoke on that June night, Opper-Weiner, a lawyer, realized that
an overlooked city zoning rule she had uncovered that day might be the key.
At the least, she hoped, the zoning rule seemed to require Girls and Boys
Town to meet in person with its most uneasy new neighbors.
Some citizens and groups here back Girls and Boys Town, which has been in
Washington since 1993, but Opper-Weiner and others have rallied noisily against
the latest project, aimed for a vacant piece of prime real estate.
"It's not like we'll do anything to stop it," Opper-Weiner said. "But we
think it's wrong for that site."
Girls and Boys Town has moved into 12 metro areas outside the Midlands in
the last two decades, but nowhere has it run into the kind of emotional
opposition it has found in Washington. And in no other community has Girls and
Boys Town fought back so hard.
In a way, Washington has become ground zero for Girls and Boys Town, testing
both its tenacity to expand its mission to help abused and neglected children
and its public-relations skills.
Its resolve remains solid. Its neighboring skills leave room for

improvement.
In August, Girls and Boys Town sued the city, Opper-Weiner, City Council
member Sharon Ambrose and others. It alleges that they discriminated against the
mainly black youths the charity serves by working together to delay building
permits needed for the new facility.
"We know in the end the tactics of intimidation, the tactics of scaring
neighbors into opposing us, will not prevail," the Rev. Val Peter, Girls and
Boys Town's executive director, declared at a press conference at the Lincoln
Memorial.
One of the critics in the audience shouted out: "What about the tactic of
lying on the part of Boys Town? Will that prevail?"
"Folks!" Peter shot back. "Listen to this! This is the very intimidation
that these folks have used. They want to shut down the voice of those who want
help."
Clearly, the charity's relationship with the community over its new facility
distresses the city's top political leader, Mayor Anthony Williams.
"I would prefer that Boys Town were not here," Williams told the Hill, a
newspaper that covers Capitol Hill, in May. "It was beyond my call that it is
here, and now that it's here, I'm going to use every resource at my disposal to
try to make them a good neighbor."
Williams recently declined to speak to The World-Herald. Tony Bullock, his
communications director, said the mayor isn't opposed to Girls and Boys Town's
programs. The city needs more services for abused and neglected children,
Bullock said, but the mayor faulted Girls and Boys Town's approach to its new
neighborhood.
"He felt that Boys Town in this particular application didn't do what other
successful projects have done: Try to bring the neighborhood in, in advance of
their application (for building permits)," Bullock said. "When that's done,
people don't throw up roadblocks."
He said the mayor and other city officials were startled by the lawsuit.
The city has called for environmental, economic and archaeological impact
assessments of the project, all normal precautions for development near historic
Capitol Hill.
"We can't say, 'You're so wonderful we're going to waive all the
requirements,'" Bullock said. "We're doing what we're supposed to. I don't

think filing a lawsuit helps anybody. It may just gin things up."
Things have been ginned up for a while.
In the spring of 2000, residents learned that Girls and Boys Town had bought
a three-acre parcel of vacant land along Pennsylvania Avenue for $ 8.2 million
and planned to build a new facility soon.
A loose coalition quickly formed against the project. The Southeast Citizens
for Smart Development charged that the result would be a volatile mix of
troubled youths and a neighborhood where drug deals and violence are not
uncommon.
"It'll be bad for the neighborhood and bad for the kids," Opper-Weiner said.
The coalition collected donations and organized a raucous town hall meeting
last year and a rally opposing the project this spring. Opponents want Girls and
Boys Town to sell the site for a commercial development to stimulate the
neighborhood.
Peter has repeatedly claimed that the charity's programs will help the
neediest kids in one of the nation's neediest cities, and has met with those who
support him here. He said he has met with at least some of the opponents nine
times and "they shouted us down."
He called Washington a "bizarre" and "dysfunctional" city.
He has refused to sit down with Opper-Weiner and Will Hill, another vocal
foe named in the lawsuit, and has declined to hold a public meeting near the
site to explain the project.
In June, Opper-Weiner thought she had found a way to force the issue.
While waiting to look over Girls and Boys Town's building plans at the
zoning office, she read city zoning rules.
One rule caught her eye. It prohibits locating two youth residential care or
community-based residential facilities, if they house seven or more people,
within 500 feet of each other.
Awakening that night, she realized that an existing residential center was
close to Girls and Boys Town's project site. The next day she measured the
distance between the two - 168 feet, she says - and took her observations
immediately to local zoning officials. That issue is still under review by the
city.

Girls and Boys Town brushed off the 500-foot rule, saying it won't apply
because each of its group homes will house no more than six youths. But foes are
hoping the city will look at the entire project, deny part of it or call for a
public hearing for the community to weigh in.
"I think we have a right to know what they're going to do and should have
something to say about whether it's a good idea for our neighborhood," said
Opper-Weiner. "They're planning an institution in a residential neighborhood and
anybody's negative comment is just shut out."
She and others believe they should have a say because Congress in 1998
appropriated $ 7.1 million to Girls and Boys Town to expand its programs in
Washington. Some of that money likely will go toward construction on the
Pennsylvania Avenue site.
Girls and Boys Town runs other programs on a 12-acre site in northeast
Washington. There too Girls and Boys Town has aroused the ire of some neighbors.
That facility includes a 30-day emergency shelter, a group home for six
youths and offices. It is across the street from Cynthia Reed's home.
Water runoff from Girls and Boys Town's land caused soil erosion on Reed's
property and flooding of basements of nearby homes, she said.
"I'm just so sick of them I can hardly stand it," Reed said.
The existing program isn't an undue burden on local law enforcement, said
Capt. James Crane of the District of Columbia Police Department. Most calls are
requests to help a boy or girl who has left the facility, which doesn't lock
youths in, he said. Once a youth was caught with marijuana.
"Very rarely have we had to go up there for actual crimes," Crane said.
While controversy isn't unknown to Girls and Boys Town, the Washington
opposition is the strongest it has faced at any of its sites in Omaha, Grand
Island, Neb., Glenwood, Iowa, and 12 metro areas around the nation.
"We've never had that kind of problem before," said John Daniel, associate
executive director in charge of Girls and Boys Town USA.
Apparently the only other project that generated significant public debate
was when Girls and Boys Town built a cluster of group homes in Trabuco Canyon,
Calif., in 1992. Neighbors and environmentalists lost a court fight to stop
construction on a hillside between Rosy and Hickey Canyons.
"They didn't try to fit in. They crammed into the community," Bruce Conn,

president of the Rural Canyon Conservancy Fund, told the Orange County Register
at the time.
"They fought us tooth and nail," Peter said.
The Girls and Boys Town shelter in Philadelphia's Kensington neighborhood
didn't draw a peep of protest, said Jim Randolph, court and community services
director for the city's Division of Juvenile Justice.
"It's in a very tough area," Randolph said. "The stability that Girls and
Boys Town provides probably was something the neighborhood was looking forward
to."
In Los Angeles, Boys Town started a group home in 1998 in Jack Dempsey's
former home, not far from the gang turf of the Crenshaw district that was the
setting of the movie "Boyz N the Hood."
Neighbors appreciate the home. "This is a part of the village that raises a
child," said the Rev. Ric Reed of nearby First A.M.E. Church. "Too many
children here are being raised by the streets, not by quality teaching and
counseling."
Girls and Boys Town is raising money for two more emergency shelters in
Southern California but failed to get the proper zoning for a site in Gardena.
Some neighbors in Sanford, Fla., worried about property values and rowdy
youths when Girls and Boys Town opened an emergency shelter in the Orlando
suburb in 1990.
"They're the best neighbors I ever had," said Perry Hardin, who lives next
door.
Girls and Boys Town took over an apartment building that was growing seedy
and remodeled it extensively. "They work constantly on this place. It's a
showplace," Hardin said.
Once a youth tossed something into Hardin's yard, and a counselor sent the
youth to retrieve it and apologize, she said.
"I haven't heard any complaining from any of the neighbors since they came
in," Hardin said.
GRAPHIC: B&W Photo/1 Girls and Boys Town's plans for a second project in
Washington, D.C. have drawn opposition from neighbors and the mayor. "We know in
the end the tactics of intimidation, the tactics of scaring neighbors into
opposing us, will not prevail," the Rev. Val Peter, Girls and Boys Town's

executive director, said Aug. 14 at the Lincoln Memorial. Artist Rendering/1

ESOCOFF AND ASSOCIATES ARCHITECTS/1, This artchitect's rendering shows the
four group homes that Boys and Girls Town wants to build in a troubled neighborhood.;
ESOCOFF AND ASSOCIATES ARCHITECTS/1, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/1

These stories are the third part of a four-part series about the national operation of
Girls and Boys Town, formerly known as Boys Town.
Copyright 2001 Omaha World-Herald
Reprinted with permission
September 4, 2001, Tuesday SUNRISE EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 1A
HEADLINE: As youths' needs change, so do Boys Town's services
By Stephen Buttry
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
OVIEDO, Fla. Doreen Allen effortlessly scoops Eric into her arms. He ain't heavy;
he's a baby.
At 6 months old, Eric already has fallen behind. He can't sit up yet or move
around on the floor. He will have to wear a helmet to correct the shape of his
head.
Eric and the other babies and toddlers at this Girls and Boys Town emergency
shelter outside Orlando are too young for serious mischief. But they have been
in trouble since birth.
The children come to the shelter from heartbreaking circumstances. One child
in the shelter during a recent visit came from a house of crack dealers. Another
had been found with rotted teeth and bugs crawling on her head. Another child
was walking unattended three or four blocks from home. Others were rescued from
fire hazards and filth. Some come straight from the hospital after being born
with drugs in their bodies.
Girls and Boys Town today provides refuge and guidance to a vastly wider
crowd than the street ruffians depicted in the classic 1938 "Boys Town" movie
starring Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney.
And the modern-day home campus in Omaha differs greatly from Girls and Boys
Town services in the Orlando area and 11 other metro areas served by the growing
national operation.
The principle behind the Florida baby haven and the other services offered
in the national operation remains the same as when Father Edward Flanagan opened
his first home for boys in 1917 in Omaha, said John Daniel, associate executive
director in charge of the national operation.
"Father Flanagan set out to meet the needs of the kids," Daniel said. "The
needs of the kids were different in 1917 than the needs of the kids in 2001."
As in several other locations around the country, the program in central
Florida includes a cluster of family homes where married couples act as

surrogate parents for groups of youths. At the headquarters village in Omaha,

family homes are the heart of the operation, with about 500 youths living in 75
homes and attending schools operated by Girls and Boys Town.
In central Florida and most of the organization's other operations outside
the Midlands, however, Girls and Boys Town serves several times as many youths
in emergency shelters as it does in family homes. And the national operations
serve more children in foster homes and their parents' homes than in the
shelters and group homes combined.
Girls and Boys Town operations in Miami and New England don't include
shelters or family homes. Philadelphia and Atlanta programs include shelters but
no group homes.
The Florida shelter for children under 5 is unique in the Girls and Boys
Town operation. Much like the death of Shelby Duis in Spirit Lake shocked Iowans
in 2000, Floridians were outraged by the 1998 death of Kayla McKean, a
6-year-old with a long history of abuse.
The state responded by removing children more aggressively from dangerous
homes. However, placing a child in foster care can take a few days or weeks,
even in an emergency, and the state wasn't prepared to care for its abused-baby
boom.
"They had children sleeping in hotel rooms," said Teresa Miles, who was site
director for Girls and Boys Town of Central Florida at the time.
Girls and Boys Town responded by opening an emergency shelter to house the
young children while authorities sought foster homes. Other Girls and Boys Town
homes and shelters are for youths 10 to 17, though a few accept younger
siblings.
The shelter for tots illustrates Girls and Boys Town's knack for "finding a
gap in services or finding a need that's local and using their national model to
provide services," said Dee Richter, executive director of the Florida Network
of Youth and Family Services. Richter spent 15 years with Girls and Boys Town,
directing the operations in Orlando and Tallahassee, Fla.
Girls and Boys Town's national expansion started in Florida because the
state ranked last in the nation in child-care services, said the Rev. Val Peter,
executive director of Girls and Boys Town.
Daniel, who joined Girls and Boys Town after working in economic development
in Philadelphia, speaks of meeting the needs of the youth-care "market" in each
community. Often the organization will open an emergency shelter first to
establish a presence in the market, then add other services to address needs

that Girls and Boys Town officials and local youth-care agencies identify.
The national organization and local officials have identified a wide range
of services for the central Florida operation, the second oldest and second
largest Girls and Boys Town program outside Omaha:
An emergency shelter provides short-term services for teen-agers awaiting
placement in foster care or institutions providing long-term care. Girls and
Boys Town operates emergency or detention shelters in eight metropolitan areas
nationwide, as well as in Grand Island, Neb.
Training for foster parents. Eleven Girls and Boys Town operations around
the country include Treatment Foster Family Services.
Common Sense Parenting, a six-class session teaching skills to parents.
Girls and Boys Town teaches parenting classes in six locations.
Counseling, screening, a hot line and other services for troubled youths and
families.
In the coming year, the central Florida operation plans to add a second
shelter for youths 10 to 17 and a school to serve both shelters, said site
director Mary Kate O'Leary.
Each of the national programs sends daily reports to the Omaha headquarters,
which compiles and analyzes data on all the operations. Experts at the home
campus monitor the satellite operations to maintain standards and identify
problems.
In all programs, Daniel said, Girls and Boys Town aims to heal the youths
who will be raising the next generation. Citing the proverb that it takes a
village to raise a child, he said, "If the village is not right, the kids will
be crazy."
The ultimate goal of each program, Daniel said, is to "send kids into the
neighborhood to lift it up."
Jasmine Egipciaco is starting to lift up the community in Orlando. A former
runaway who gave birth at the age of 15, Egipciaco teaches sexual abstinence in
Orlando area schools in a program called Education Now, Babies Later.
She started running away from home at age 13. Her parents couldn't control
her. "My dad called the cops and said take her out of my home, I can't deal with
her," Egipciaco recalled. The officer told her about Girls and Boys Town and
took her to the agency's emergency shelter in Sanford, Fla.

She has a photograph of herself at the time. "You see nothing but
hatefulness. You can tell I didn't love myself."
The strict rules she encountered in two stays at the shelter provided
structure that Egipciaco needed, and the caring workers helped her learn to love
herself. She read and wrote poetry and started a journal to help express her
feelings.
"I'm OK and my life is better now," said Egipciaco, now 21 and a freshman
studying psychology at Seminole Community College.
Another 15-year-old runaway jolted the Sanford shelter in 1997 by alleging
that two male counselors had sex with her. One of the counselors pleaded guilty
and the other was acquitted in a trial. Boys Town fired both.
The scandal "was a heartbreaking time," said Miles, the former Girls and
Boys Town site director who is now vice president of Crosswinds Youth Service
Center in Merritt Island, Fla.
The central Florida program's reputation recovered, Miles said. "Our
community rallied around us. They truly did."
Shortly after that case, the Kayla McKean child-abuse scandal rocked
Florida's child-welfare system.
Developing the shelter for young children presented a new challenge. Other
Girls and Boys Town shelters and group homes closely follow a national model for
teaching social skills in a structured environment. Youths receive or lose
points for positive and negative behavior, recorded on cards they carry.
Girls and Boys Town officials knew that that program, designed for youths 10
to 17 years old, wouldn't work in the shelter for young children.
"We took our Common Sense Parenting model and taught our staff to be really
good parents," Miles said. "We can take what the community need is and develop
something to meet that need."
In Girls and Boys Town shelters for older youths, workers don't tolerate
hitting or kicking a staff member. With the younger children, shelter workers
are excited when a child starts kicking or swinging at staff members. That may
mean the child feels safe. Typically such an outburst comes after several days
of being withdrawn after coming from an abusive home.
"She's probably trying to see how much will these people take," explained
Allen, the shelter coordinator.

For babies, the shelter provides care, stimulation and safety. Workers
teach older children the alphabet and vocabulary words and take them on field
trips. The mantel is decorated with craft projects bearing children's names.
Many of the children show developmental problems as basic as not knowing
their names.
Perhaps the most important service at the shelter is love for children who
have known only abuse and neglect.
A 3-year-old boy interrupted an interview by hugging a reporter, grabbing
the reporter's pen and scribbling in his notebook. The boy was asked if he liked
it at the shelter.
"Yeah," he answered. "I get lots of kisses and hugs."
Those helped across U.S.
1,200 youths served in group homes
2,780 youths served in emergency shelters
328 families served in Family Preservation Services
275 youths served through Treatment Foster Family Services
1,522 parents taking Common Sense Parenting classes
GRAPHIC: Color Photo/1 Teresa Miles hugs two of the children at the Girls and
Boys Town emergency shelter for young children in Oviedo, Fla. The shelter has
six cribs for infants and six beds for children 5 and younger. B&W Photo/1 "I'm
OK and my life is better now." Former Girls and Boys Town resident Jasmine
Egipciaco; JILL SAGERS FOR THE WORLD-HERALD/1sf/1
Copyright 2001 Omaha World-Herald
Reprinted with permission
September 4, 2001, Tuesday SUNRISE EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 2A
HEADLINE: Boys Town helps families help kids
By Stephen Buttry
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
SANTA ANA, Calif. While Boys Town gained its fame and remains best known for
providing homes for troubled youths, much of its work seeks to keep children in their
own homes.
"Our role is to observe the family's strengths and build skills based on

those strengths," said Colleen Velasco, a Girls and Boys Town family
preservation consultant at the program in Orange County, Calif.
Velasco works in Family Preservation Services, a Girls and Boys Town program
for families that have been reported for child abuse and neglect. Girls and Boys
Town offers the service in three metro areas as well as Grand Island, Neb., and
Glenwood, Iowa.
The Rev. Val Peter, executive director of Girls and Boys Town, said the
agency designed family-based programs to help keep children in their homes.
Many parents are eager to learn new skills when they are having trouble with
their children, Peter said. "The best time to reach people is when they're in
pain."
The growth of the Orange County program shows how many parents need help. In
1999 the program served 42 families with four consultants. Last year, 14
consultants helped 249 families.
Girls and Boys Town workers provide services in English, Spanish and
Vietnamese, teaching parents not only how to discipline and care for children,
but also household skills such as cleaning and budgeting.
Some families, particularly immigrants, need education rather than reform.
Federico Tellez, assistant coordinator of the Orange County program, remembers
teaching a young mother how to change her 4-year-old's colostomy bag to prevent
infection. He has shown parents how to use an appointment calendar and a
telephone and to pack a bottle and diapers for a doctor's appointment that could
take all afternoon.
"A lot of our families have good intentions," Tellez said. "They love their
kids. They just don't know how to care for them."
A Mexican immigrant mother living in Orange, Calif., said through an
interpreter that a Girls and Boys Town family consultant helped her discipline
daughters who were truant. One of them got pregnant twice.
"They've helped me know how to guide them, what to do when they misbehave,"
the woman said. She grounded the daughters and denied telephone privileges. Now
the daughters "have to show me with their behavior before they get what they
want."

These stories are the conclusion of a four-part series about the national operation of
Girls and Boys Town, formerly known as Boys Town.
Copyright 2001 Omaha World-Herald
Reprinted with permission
September 5, 2001, Wednesday MIDLANDS EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 1A
HEADLINE: Through training, Boys Town makes impact in schools
By Stephen Buttry
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
The screaming fifth-grader was a teacher's nightmare. He stood atop a desk,
cursing the teacher and calling her a whore. He kicked at her when she
approached.
Stuart Harder knew what the boy needed. Over the next few months, the boy's
teachers became amazed at his friendly greetings in the hall and his classroom
behavior. The boy himself was amazed to learn that his teachers liked him.
Harder, behavior analyst for six Minnesota school districts, is one of the
thousands of educators nationwide who train annually in the Boys Town Education
Model. He has attended five workshops on the methods of the Omaha-based
institution.
The workshops teach the techniques that Boys Town has used for years to
change the behavior of troubled youths in Omaha and, increasingly, around the
country. (Though the youth shelters and homes are now called Girls and Boys
Town, the training programs still use the traditional Boys Town name.)
The programs train educators to teach students social skills such as
disagreeing appropriately and accepting consequences. They watch for good
behavior to praise and quietly but firmly refuse to tolerate misbehavior.
"This is life-changing stuff for kids," Harder said. "We have literally
saved some youngsters from heading into the prison systems."
Urban schools from Los Angeles to Chicago to Hartford, Conn., are using the
Boys Town model. Rural schools such as Norton, Kan., also use the methods. Boys
Town trained 9,090 educators last year, about twice as many as in 1998.
Some individual teachers in the Omaha Public Schools are trained in the Boys
Town model, but it hasn't been adopted districtwide. Several years ago, two
schools and the alternative education program trained their whole staffs in the
model.
Other area districts that have sent teachers to Girls and Boys Town training

programs are Millard, Westside, Bellevue, Papillion-La Vista, Lincoln, Fremont,

Ralston, Plattsmouth, Elkhorn and South Sarpy. Several area Catholic schools
also have sent teachers to Girls and Boys Town training.
Boys Town trainers present workshops around the country as well as at the
National Resource and Training Center on the Omaha campus. In addition to
teaching educators, the center trains youth care workers, parents, foster
parents and social workers.
The center also trains Girls and Boys Town employees, both for the Omaha
campus and for programs in a dozen metro areas around the country. Employees
come to Omaha for a two-week course before working with youths. Even support
employees who don't work directly with youths take the training so they will
understand the organization's mission and methods.
Training programs in southern California are extensive enough to support a
second Boys Town training center in Hollywood. Boys Town has trained teachers in
the Los Angeles Unified School District and staff at county youth centers in Los
Angeles, Orange and San Diego Counties.
"The more people we train to do what we do, the more impact we can have,"
said Lawrence Burton, training director in southern California.
This fall Boys Town and the California-based organization Character Counts
will collaborate on a program to teach moral values in public schools. The
program does not base the values on religious beliefs, but on the "Six Pillars
of Character": trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring and
citizenship.
"This avoids the problem of separation of church and state," said the Rev.
Val Peter, executive director of Girls and Boys Town. "If we can teach kids
these things we will elevate the moral character of the country."
Educators say Boys Town programs already have elevated behavior in
classrooms. Klein Independent School District in Houston studied two large
ethnically diverse elementary schools before and after implementing the Boys
Town model.
Both schools reported "a dramatic decrease in the frequency of office
referrals for all reasons," the study said. Students also spent more time on
task. The improved behavior "represents a sizable increase in the amount of time
students are focused on learning," the study said.
The program teaches students skills to use in classroom communication and
behavior. It also trains teachers in avoiding and addressing crises.

"We want you to add some tools to your tool belt so you don't go to the
finger and the voice," Rosie Schuman, Girls and Boys Town's staff and training
coordinator, told educators in a workshop, taking a stern tone and pointing
sharply in a classic angry-teacher pose.
The methods are tough, but they are not loud or physical.
"As soon as you put your hands on a kid you increase the likelihood that
that kid is going to get hurt or you're going to get hurt," trainer Jacqueline
Ford told a workshop.
Boys Town encourages schools and individual teachers to avoid problems
through "proactive teaching." At the beginning of the school year, before
trouble develops, teachers require students to practice social skills such as
accepting criticism, dealing with frustration and showing appreciation.
Trainer Mary McGuire encouraged teachers in an August workshop to have
students practice the skills in skits. "Let them be goofy."
Some teachers, she said, use the skills in their curriculum, asking students
to practice the skills in a foreign language or to assess how well literary
characters or historical figures showed appreciation or controlled anger.
Before times of potential stress, teachers should remind students to use the
skills. For instance, a teacher handing graded tests back to students should
remind them about the steps involved in accepting criticism.
The program teaches students to consider options and consequences and decide
on a plan when they face a problem, such as whether to do homework.
"If we help them solve the problem or learn to work the problem, then what
we do is empower them for life," McGuire said.
When "proactive" teaching fails to prevent a crisis, teachers use Boys
Town's "corrective teaching" techniques of responding calmly but firmly.
"The more tense it gets the more calm you have to get," Schuman explained.
She trains teachers to "look at what your emotional hot buttons are" so the
teacher can avoid escalating a tense situation.
During the corrective encounter, the teacher gives the student a reason to
behave properly, reminds the student of the consequences of misbehavior and
always looks for tiny glimpses of good behavior to praise.
In a role-playing exercise during training, Schuman said "Thanks for taking
a deep breath" when the trainer playing a student paused for breath during a

rant.
"It was hard," Schuman said later. "I was like 'do something good, do
something good so I can squeeze that in.'"
That works in real life, Harder said. He once faced a student who brandished
a chair menacingly. Harder told the youth to put down the chair and he threw it
noisily to the floor. Harder responded, "Thanks for putting down the chair," and
calmed the student down.
"In the middle of chaos, you find these little bits of behavior that you can
build on," Harder said. "Even in the middle of the crisis we're building
relationships with kids."
The angry fifth-grader who was standing on the desk needed a relationship
with his teachers. After removing him from the classroom, Harder spent "four
continuous hours with him when he was just wild."
Harder didn't raise his voice, didn't make demands and persistently told the
boy he wanted to help him. Wanting something positive to praise, Harder told
him, "Thanks for staying in the room with me. That takes a lot of courage."
Finally, when the boy was lying on the floor under a desk, refusing to
cooperate, he suddenly started to cry.
"This has been really hard for you, hasn't it?" Harder asked. The boy came
out from under the desk and started to settle down. "From that point on, we
started making some progress."
For a few months, Harder and other specialists worked with the boy in a
learning center outside the classroom. As he learned to voice his frustrations,
Harder said, one message emerged clearly: "None of the teachers like me here."
Harder taught the boy simple greeting skills and told him to pleasantly
greet teachers in the hallway the next day. "He was really scared," Harder
recalled.
The educator eased the way by encouraging the teachers to respond
pleasantly. "He came back to us, and he was just flying," Harder said. "He said,
"They really like me!'"
Soon teachers were asking what had caused the change in the boy's attitude
and behavior, Harder said.
"We would have lost that kid had we not intervened in this way." (7)

Boys Town's benefits to schools

9,090 - Educators trained
231 - School districts represented by educators trained
1,511 - Professionals trained in programs for emergency services and
residential services
465 - Parent trainers who took "Common Sense Parenting" program
Source: Girls and Boys Town annual reports.
GRAPHIC: Color Photo/1 Alex Franks teaches and Cory Richardson Lauve, left,
listens in a training session in Omaha. Educators learn to teach social skills
and praise positive actions.; JEFF BEIERMANN/WORLD-HERALD/1sf
Copyright 2001 Omaha World-Herald
Reprinted with permission
September 5, 2001, Wednesday SUNRISE EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 2A
HEADLINE: Problems in L.A. were too big for Boys Town to solve
By Stephen Buttry
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
EL MONTE, Calif. Girls and Boys Town training wasn't the solution to the troubles
that plagued the MacLaren Children's Center.
For years, MacLaren has meant trouble. Trouble for the already troubled
youths that Los Angeles County sent there. Trouble for county officials who
don't want any more trouble from the youths.
This is where Los Angeles County sends youths who have failed in foster
homes, group homes and other programs, "those kids no one will take," said
administrator John Robbins.
The youths are supposed to stay up to 30 days while the system finds new
placements. Some stay as long as a year. Some return repeatedly. "There are some
kids who have almost been raised here," Robbins said.
For Girls and Boys Town, the good news about MacLaren is that no one blames
it for the mess. The bad news is that the trouble persists long after Girls and
Boys Town trained the MacLaren staff in the methods used at the organization's
homes and shelters across the country.
"MacLaren has such serious problems that it's way beyond anything Boys Town
could do," said Carole Shauffer, executive director of the Youth Law Center,

based in San Francisco.

In the late 1990s, MacLaren came to symbolize the failures of the youth care
system in Los Angeles County.
A 1998 reorganization took the center away from the county's Department of
Children and Family Services and put a group of agencies in charge.
Robbins, who moved to MacLaren from San Diego in 1999, hoped that Boys Town
training for the staff would help restore order. "What Boys Town offered was a
way to provide a consistent program to provide kids with tools they can use for
the rest of their lives."
Girls and Boys Town concluded its training at MacLaren last year and no
longer has a contract with the center.
MacLaren's many critics say the entrenched, unionized staff has been slow to
change. Robbins conceded that changing the institution was "kind of like pulling
our folks through a knothole backwards."
The Girls and Boys Town approach of watching for small bits of improved
behavior, even in confrontations, seemed foreign to the MacLaren staff.
"When a kid is out of control, calling you everything but a child of God,
maybe spitting on you, it runs counter to human nature to acknowledge positives,
even to see them at times," Robbins said.
The training has helped, he said, but "it's being set on top of a
long-standing culture that's in need of change."
Patricia Biggerstaff, a school psychologist at MacLaren, said: "The Boys
Town training brought some structure to us. We were all looking at students the
same way."
However, several developments this year underscore how serious the trouble
is:
In April, a state court ordered MacLaren and other county-run shelters to
follow the same rules as private youth care facilities or shut down.
In July, a class-action lawsuit charged that workers routinely "intimidated,
controlled, threatened, assaulted, battered and physically injured" youths.
In August, county supervisors approved more changes to the MacLaren
management structure.

Last year Girls and Boys Town officials talked enthusiastically about their
work with MacLaren. In an interview last month, the Rev. Val Peter, executive
director of Girls and Boys Town, acknowledged that the training made little
difference.
"The union was stonewalling us. ... They were sort of going through the
motions but nothing good was going to happen," Peter said. "What we learned at
MacLaren is if they won't give you enough room to do your model, don't go there.
... That's why we didn't do well at MacLaren."