Residential Life

To take a virtual tour of the grounds, click here.

The houses are simply decorated and house approximately 12 boys at a time.

House supervisors, such as John Wright, featured advising a St. Vincent graduate in the accompanying photo/video and Team Leader, Lonnie Webb of McKenna House, represent our team of caring, dedicated employees. Each house is organized according to age group and each program is designed to meet the developmental needs of its clients.

The focus of residential life at St. Vincent’s is to provide a place for the client to make strong but flexible attachments to childcare staff. Given that most clients have experienced more disruption than stability in their young lives, we do not expect them to have an easy time settling in and accepting help. We use many strategies to help our clients begin to develop new, effective behaviors to replace older, maladaptive ones, but the major approach is the direct relationship with the childcare staff.

In most of the units at St. Vincent’s, the ratio of childcare staff to children is 1:4; in the L14 unit, Alemany, it is 1:3. Program Supervisors have their offices in the housing units so that they are available throughout their working day to the staff and children. After business hours, there is a campus supervisor present until midnight, when the night supervisor comes on duty. At that time, there are night awake staff in each unit, as well. To provide depth and back-up, there are administrators on call twenty-four hours a day and there is a clinical on-call system for mental health crises.

Group life is a mixture of structured activities such as transitional group meetings, chores, meals and recreational outings and informal activities such as outdoor games, indoor games, time spent with favorite staff members and “down time.” Older clients often have jobs in the community. Again, the emphasis through all of these activities is on the relationship between the client and the staff.

The most important and most effective factor in the treatment of children here is the partnership between the parents and the staff. It can be very difficult for parents to allow their children to become attached to the staff, but when the parents and the staff cooperate and share their experiences, the children make much more rapid progress.
When it is not possible for children to return home, it may be possible for them to go to foster care, and parental support and encouragement is more important than ever in that case. Children need to know that their parents will still love them even when they don’t live together as a traditional family.

Length of Stay and Dispositions—What Comes After St. Vincent’s?

It is impossible to state a typical length of stay – it depends on the client, the county, the number of prior placements, the response to this placement and the willingness of the family to participate in whatever way they can, be it by phone or in person. Children generally stay for two years; they can be here, if necessary until they have graduated from high school. Some children have stayed for as long as seven years! It is important to think about what is going to keep the child in the most stable condition without sacrificing opportunities to move into a more intimate home. For many, many of our clients, this is the first comprehensive treatment they have had and it takes a very long time to get over the 10 or 12 previous disruptions and to begin to grow and develop. Premature discharges often result in another residential placement.

The major goal is to move a client to foster care or to home before he is 16; it is good for him to have two years to live in a family before he is finished with high school. We are very fortunate to have a Foster Family Agency as part of our program and to be able to refer youngsters to them for placement in the surrounding counties. This means that transitional help from the residential agency is available through the transition into foster care and so we avoid an abrupt change of all caregivers. Clients who are staying with us through graduation usually go to other structured or semi-structured living situations such as the Job Corps, adult mental health settings, transitional living arrangements and even to the military in a very few cases. St. Vincent’s will help the client to find a suitable living situation in collaboration with his referral agent, and ease him into the next living situation whenever possible.