Boys & Girls Town opened its Columbia campus in 2001 when it assumed management of The Front Door, a not-for-profit residential treatment program for abused and neglected teens. The original Columbia campus included a girls’ cottage, a boys’ cottage and an administrative center in separate locations.

In 2005, the first phase of a new 5.8-acre campus was completed offering a relaxed, spacious setting with on site recreational activity opportunities and including a cottage for boys and one for girls, serving 24 children. In September 2008, two additional cottages opened, housing 12 residents each, to bring the total number of children served by the residential program to 48. Work continues on a combined centralized dining hall and recreation center.

Since opening the residential treatment program in Columbia, Boys & Girls Town has expanded the continuum of services offered to children and families in the community ranging from in-home prevention service to overseeing treatment for children in foster families and helping older youth poised to leave the state’s foster care system.

Residential Treatment Program
The residential treatment program on the Columbia campus provides 24-hours-a-day supervision in a therapeutic environment. The program offers two levels of care, including Intensive Treatment and Intermediate Treatment. Based on individual needs, a combination of these services are available to all residents:
• Psychiatric and psychological assessments and evaluations    
• Individual, Group and Family Therapy
• Recreation Therapy
• Outreach Services
• School in the Wilderness

Educational services are provided in cooperation with Columbia Public Schools for the children in residential care. Residents attend school in on-campus classrooms or in local public schools.

Intensive Treatment
Intensive Treatment Units offers a safe, secure and structured environment for youth who need stability and are at risk of suicide, running away, self-inflicted injury, violence and extreme aggressive behavior. Intensive Treatment offers special features to ensure this environment including an audio/video security monitoring system, locked entry/exit, self-contained, on-site classrooms and a 1:4 staff to resident ratio.

Intermediate Treatment
Intermediate Treatment Units offer programming and security comparable to the intensive treatment units, however the therapeutic structure offer more independence. The staff to resident ratio is 1:6.

Family Focus Program
Family Focus is designed to engage the family (biological or adoptive) in the treatment process while their child is in residential care, and to prepare them for the child’s return home. It is a unique nine- to 12-month venture where the child spends the first three months in residential care and the remaining months in his or her home with transitional support. Both the child and family receive intensive treatment services designed specifically to meet their needs.

Intensive In-Home Services
Intensive In-Home Services is a four- to six-week crisis-intervention program designed to help keep families together safely. A family specialist works directly with family members in their home. Family members may receive individual and family counseling, parenting education, child development training, household maintenance education, nutritional training, job readiness training, and referral to other community resources. Referrals for this program are made to Missouri Department of Social Services Children’s Division by concerned family members, mental health providers, school personnel, social service providers, juvenile courts, or hospitals. Children’s Division then places the family in the care of Boys & Girls Town.

Foster Care Case Management
Boys & Girls Town of Missouri Central Region provides foster care case management for children referred by Missouri Department of Social Services Children’s Division. Family care managers regularly meet with the child, their parent/guardian, and the child’s out of home care provider to provide on-going assessments and ensure that services are in place that meet the needs of the child and family and work toward a permanent living situation for each child.

Chaffee Foster Care Independence Program Services
Chafee Foster Care Independence Program helps older youth in the state child welfare system become productive, self-sufficient adults within their communities by helping with academic achievement, job readiness, independent living skills, leadership and developing a support system within the community. The program also provides aftercare service to youth who have “aged out” of the state’s foster care system. These services may include help with food, emergency shelter or rent, security and utility deposits, and emergency auto repairs.

Transitional Living Group Home
The Transitional Living Group Home program provides a stable, safe living environment for youth ages 16 to 21, who are in need of life skills training that promotes self-sufficiency as they move out on their own from residential or foster care.  The program focuses on meeting a youth’s developmental needs, prevention of self-defeating behaviors and empowerment to become self-sufficient.

Admissions Information
Admission into one of Boys & Girls Town’s programs is fast, confidential and focused on addressing the needs of the child and family.

Children are referred to by the Missouri Alliance for Children and Families, Department of Social Services Children’s Division, Department of Mental Health, Division of Youth Services, the court system, insurance and managed care companies, employee assistance professionals, parents or other guardians. Referrals may come from Missouri or any other state. Children placed at our Columbia campus must meet basic admissions criteria: age 9 to 21, availability of bed space, a current diagnosis and the family’s ability to pay through either public or private sources.

Common diagnostic characteristics include: attention deficit disorder, anti-social behavior, bi-polar disorder, conduct disorder, depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, oppositional defiant disorder and suicidal ideations.

These disorders are often exhibited through one or more of the following behavioral problems: inappropriate behavior in school or at home, poor school performance, acts of delinquency, running away, sexually acting out, gang involvement and drug and/or alcohol abuse.

Boys & Girls Town placement experts work with families to identify all available public and private resources to ensure that each child gets the help he or she needs. The cost of treatment programs are covered by most insurance plans.

Most children remain at Boys & Girls Town for six to nine months, although length of stay is evaluated on an individual basis and can be influenced by the policies of the referral source, the child’s behavior, family circumstances and treatment team recommendations.

For information about Columbia referrals, please contact the Admissions Department at (573) 874-8686.

Where do Boys & Girls Town children go?
More than 80 percent of the youth leaving Boys & Girls Town residential care returned to live with a parent or family member, or transitioned into foster care or independent living services. Others remained in residential care or moved to more restrictive environments such as hospitals.

How You Can Help
The success of Boys & Girls Town’s treatment of young people is a tribute to the generous support of the Columbia community and friends throughout Missouri. Those interested in helping these young people succeed may provide financial support to help maintain and develop programs, serve as a mentor, provide employment opportunities.  Individuals, companies and civic groups interested in volunteering time and talent are welcome. 

Boys & Girls Town of Missouri - Columbia Campus
4304 South Bearfield Rd.
Columbia, MO 65201
Phone: (573) 874-8686
Fax: (573) 874-8608
www.bgtm.org