29. December 2011 by admin.

Our boys

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10. December 2010 by admin.

A JUNTA — Residents of CBR YouthConnect are helping others — from the kitchen.

Youths at the psychiatric residential treatment center, formerly known as the Colorado Boys Ranch, are taking part in the center’s new Catering Connection program. They’re baking pies, breads and desserts to donate to holiday meals in the community. And they’re helping needy students in the Arkansas Valley by filling backpacks with food through Care and Share’s Backpack Program, which provides free lunches.

The youths are Patrick Lundahl, Tyler Crotsenberg, Christopher “Kit” Lyons, James McDonald, Israel Farrell and Skyler Lane. They are enrolled in the Principles of Food Technology class at the treatment center. It’s an academic class that meets every day — four days of book work and one day of cooking — and for which students get credit and a certificate.

“They have to earn their way into the class,” says instructor Kristi Hartless. “They have to show appropriate behavior, they have to meet their (treatment) program goals. They’re the cream of the crop, the ones who have more initiative.

“We’re teaching different aspects of food service: cooking, waiting on people, dishwashing. We’re giving them skills so when they leave they might have a chance at a job.”

The class and the catering experience have other real-world applications that the boys understand, says Martin Masar, executive director of CBR YouthConnect.

“They did a (role-playing) session on how to handle an angry customer,” Masar says. “These kids have been hurt and abused all their lives and some of them have anger problems of their own. What a powerful clinical tool — to show them that they can wait on people with a smile.”

Masar also says that volunteering to help other people causes a person to open his heart to receive emotional rewards, feelings such as compassion, happiness, excitement, hope and love, and that these emotions have healing powers.

This is the first year youths are helping in the catering program, according to Tammy Talmich, the catering manager.

“We have four kids in the class who work in the kitchen during the day, helping prep food, clean up, whatever we need them to do. They handle the situations so wonderfully. Most of the time they go and do the task and do it in a timely manner.”

The youths will make 600 dinner rolls for a community Christmas dinner and might bake gingerbread men, too, Talmich says.

“They’ve made everything from flatbread to stromboli (meat- and cheese-filled pastry) to desserts. We want to teach them to make candy.

“They’ve done some catering at the ranch. We had a business dinner and one man said he thought it was a professional catering firm. They did an excellent job; they were very service-oriented.

“The kids have such pride in themselves.”

Talmich says she sees a real change in one young man when he enters the kitchen.

“He is very standoffish — he has a lot of trust issues and doesn’t like to interact with others. But put him in the kitchen and he’s smiling and laughing. He made some of the best pumpkin cheesecake I’ve ever eaten — from scratch. The kids requested it for our dinner here at the ranch.”

Talmich says he has the talent to go on to a career in the food industry “if he puts his mind to it.”

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15. July 2009 by admin.

Anthony was longing to show us his sketchbook. Although, when he opened it, the pages were less like a sketchbook and more like a completed work. Pages and pages of line drawings and colors, with inked pages of detail and meticulous time obviously spent. Flipping through, he stops on a two-page spread, its background filled in a royal purple.

“It’s something that makes me feel happy,” says Anthony as he tilts the book as though he were going to read us a story from its pages, “I use it to feel good every day.”
Anthony has been with us for about five months now, and he says that the art program is a great way to help him relax, “I use it to express myself, and it’s a coping skill when I get mad” Anthony tells us. He looks down again at his purple picture, “This is my favorite because of the purple, and because my nickname is Chucky,” he lists as he points to an identical drawing of the Chucky character from the Rugrats cartoon.

“I’ve always liked to draw, but here I get time to do…you know whatever I like to draw,” Anthony says as he looks away from his picture, “I love the art program. I have great, talented teachers and they help me develop skills and teach me to be constructive and create whatever things I want.”

Anthony plans on being in future art shows with his drawings, and maybe making a mural in the future. “I really want to make a big one!” he says, pointing to his sketchbook, “I have lots of ideas.” Maybe someday we will see Anthony’s art at a gallery, or used for a city museum, or maybe he will just do it for fun. After all, it does make him “happy”.

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27. May 2009 by admin.

By Ken McNerney
Education Director /Principal
CBRYouthConnect

Recently I was speaking to a former student about his time at CBRYC, which he affectionately referred to as “the ranch”. For the purposes of this blog, let’s call him John, (Johnny is a good anonymous name, so why should I break with tradition?) He had come to us a frightened 15 year old with emotional problems that had manifested at home, in the community, and also at school. He had been receiving special education services for several years, but had been moved from classroom to classroom, and from teacher to teacher. His behaviors often landed him in the administrator’s office and/or with his parents at the schools, which in turn stressed his family life even more. John could not see then that he was a fortunate student. He had an advocate in a special education teacher who understood the severity of John’s problems and worked hard to get John some help. This teacher realized that John needed to transition from an over-burdened special education system in a public school and also from the non-public school that specialized in emotional disabilities which was also having difficulty meeting John’s educational needs. John needed an out of state placement 2000 miles from home at CBRYC.
John did well while he was here at CBRYC, and in turn was able to return to a non-public school in his home state and eventually back into a public high school participating in general education classes with some special accommodations.

I asked John what made CBRYC a success for him, and what he believed happened here for him that had not happened at other schools. John said simply, “a different kind of teacher.” He went on saying, “The teachers there (at CBRYC) cared and went out of the way for me. I learned so much there and not just school work.” After our phone conversation, I thought for a long time about what John had said. His perception was really nothing new to me because we have always strived to reach our students. I considered how powerful that simple concept is because the heart of all of our work with the youth we serve is based in building relationships.

We are fortunate here at CBRYC to have the opportunity to build relationships with our students. We are also fortunate enough to have very small class sizes and plenty of staff assistance. We also believe that all learning does not have to take place in the classroom. We often say that we take the classroom to the kid. Most importantly, we have a knowledgeable staff with years of experience teaching children with emotional problems. Our philosophy incorporates treatment goals into every aspect of the student’s residential experience, including school. A child’s clinical team, residential team and educational team work hand in hand, each supporting the other until a seamless plan is developed and implemented. This may best be illustrated though the concept of applied learning.

Aside from offering standards-based curriculum and researched-based interventions, we have always focused a large part of a student’s educational experience on the concept of applied learning. Applied Learning is separate from but part of academic, vocational and educational areas. Applied Learning as a model modifies academic and vocational education curriculum to meet the needs of emotionally disabled students. Students now have a practical and realistic arena to translate academic and pre-vocational/vocational skills into actual useable skills.

Applied Learning focuses on the capabilities youth need in order to be productive members of society. Applied Learning skills connect the work special education students do in academic classes to other areas, and encourage practice in science, math and language arts, as well as promoting social skills, independent living skills and specialized pre-vocational and vocational skills. Our emphasis is developing the capacity of each youth to put learning into completing real tasks.

Applied Learning can occur in both academic and vocational areas depending on the youth’s interests and motivation. The modification of instructional strategies and the applied learning model have occurred in many diverse areas.
The concept of applied learning provides the perfect opportunity to allow a student to participate in an area of interest while learning academic and social skills. We offer a variety of ways to engage a student in learning. These include but are not limited to oral reports, demonstrations, presentations, exhibits, displays, performances, dramatizations, debates, panel discussions, artwork, portfolios, original experiments and photo & video albums.

Included in the concept of applied learning are nationally recognized animal therapy programs.

In the equestrian program, students learn all concepts involved in horsemanship from grooming to riding safety. Each step involves much repetition and practice, which enhances the student’s overall ability to learn. Students will gain coordination, balance and other senses, along with leg, arm, abdominal, and back strength improvements. The implementation of math, reading, and writing skills are also applied through the job processes listed above.

In the small animals program, students can interact with many different small animals such as, guinea pigs, mice, ferrets, goats, marine and tropical fish, rabbits, birds, snakes, iguanas, caiman, dogs, turtles, chinchillas, and many others. Students learn proper animal interaction and establish respect for other living things. Proper care and feeding of animals, understanding how to establish proper handling of animals, necessary nutrition requirements, and determining the health of and health needs of the animals are all a part of the knowledge students will gain from working with these animals. In addition, students will research each animal to further their knowledge and skills in dealing with animals. Opportunities for youth to communicate their knowledge and skills to others are provided. The implementation of math, reading, and writing skills are applied daily through the job processes listed above.

The New Leash on Life program provides time to learn about new ways to develop relationships, by learning that relationships consist of a beginning, middle and end. Each youth learns to label the emotions surrounding attachments and begins the process of understanding feelings. In addition, students learn about animal behaviors and training techniques; applying learning from math, science, and language arts to train (teach) a dog to master certain behaviors. They learn about positive attachment and modulation of behaviors and relate new learning and understanding to their own life.

This brings me back to my conversation with John and the idea of a different kind of teacher and a different kind of education ideal; an educational system that is based upon the individual learning characteristics of each student. These styles include areas like attention, memory behavior, organization, communication, social development, visual, auditory, kinesthetic, motivation, individual, group, and personality or emotional styles. Although these styles can be identified utilizing a testing format, our philosophy dictates their identification through actual observation and relationship development. This can be accomplished by an Educational staff with countless hours and years of knowledge and experience that strives to reach kids that many others have given up on. Perhaps John articulated it best when he said “the teachers there took the time to get to know me and really cared how I was doing, they found ways for me to learn and they never gave up on me”.

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