The Settlement Home for Children has been changing lives since 1916. The residential treatment program is dedicated to helping children who have been abused and neglected by treating their emotional, behavioral and familial problems. Services emphasize providing a continuum of quality residential care through The Settlement Home’s Residential Treatment Center and three transitional therapeutic group homes, which are open to girls only, and
through foster family homes and adoption services for girls and boys. In total, The Settlement Home treats about 200 children annually.
Grants from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation in 2008 and 2009 covered the salaries of the three therapists working in the Residential Treatment Center cottages who provide 9,500 hours of individual, group and family therapy to the approximately 60 girls, ages seven to 18, entrusted to their care annually.
“We are one of the only treatment centers that works with sexually abused girls who have acted out their abuse on other children. It’s sad these children get labeled as perpetrators and a lot of facilities don’t want to work with them,” said Linda Addicks Kokemor, Executive Director. “We take the kids who are in the most distress.”
Located on a ten-acre campus in north Austin, The Settlement Home’s Residential Treatment Center provides a highly structured nurturing environment for the physical and emotional
healing of severely disturbed girls in need of 24-hour therapeutic care at the specialized or intense level. Three campus residential cottages provide beds for 27 girls. On campus facilities
also include a centralized activity building, dining hall, and on-campus university charter school in conjunction with the University of Texas for the children unable to function in a public school setting.
The campus program is highly clinical and has earned a good reputation for working with girls who have multiple problems, the result of years of severe abuse and neglect.
“We are fortunate to sit in the middle of Austin surrounded by great universities with programs in social work. We attract a very high level of education in our staff, even on the front line. Almost all of the house parents who live and work with the kids have undergrad degrees in social work or psychology. That is not traditional for a residential program,” said
Kokemor.
The center’s staff-to-child ratio is 1:4. A masters level therapist offices within each of the residential cottages, providing therapy as well supervising the live-in staff to assure comprehensive case management. Each cottage represents a simulated family group, mixing girls of varying ages, to foster realistic social behaviors as the girls’ transition from the Residential Treatment Center to group or foster homes or back to their families.
The average treatment stay for a girl is about eight months. Her time at the center is carefully
structured to include school, therapy sessions, meal times, study time, house chores, and social and recreational activities. Each girl receives at least one individual and three group therapy sessions weekly.
“It’s just so important, financially and from an inspirational point for my staff, to have the support of the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation. They make a difference in our community; not just for The Settlement Home but for all the people they help,” said Kokemor.
Outlook
The Settlement Home is continuing to provide quality
residential care and exceeding its 2009 annual goals:
- Therapists are providing an average of 875 hours per month of individual, group and family therapy and are on track to reach the 2009 annual goal of 9,500
hours of therapy. - The number
of therapeutic encounters for each child has exceeded the goal of one
individual and three group sessions weekly.