CALDWELL, Idaho — The Idaho Youth Ranch has brought vision to reality with the official opening of the new Residential Center for Healing and Resilience in Caldwell on Thursday.
This project has been years in the making, and the nonprofit is excited to open its doors to help provide Idaho youth care.
"This has been talked about and dreamed about for a long time," said Idaho Youth Ranch CEO, Scott Curtis. "So many conversations about what we're going to be able to do, asking people to trust and having so many people lean into this project with us."
The Idaho Youth Ranch Residential Center for Healing and Resilience is located on the 258-acre Hands of Promise Campus. The center will provide residential care for youth that suffer from severe trauma.
"They'll be given 24-hour care and their families will be wrapped into that," Curtis said. "It's meant to be an intensive intervention, where we take care of their daily needs, and we take care of their behavioral health needs."
The 24-hour care will include nursing, psychiatric care, a variety of therapies and year-round schooling for more than 100 kids, ages 11 to 17.
The center will also have 64 individual bedrooms, a welcome center, a dining hall with commercial and training kitchens, a therapy and wellness building and a recreation hall.
"For many, many years, Idaho has been sending youth with these issues to other states, because we have not had an accredited psychiatric residential treatment facility and that's what's required in order to be eligible to receive these youth," Curtis said.
Now that the center is open, Idaho kids can be closer to their families.
"More youth in Idaho will remain in Idaho, which is a big deal, right? Because going further away, when there's so much going on, creates another layer of trauma for our families and youth," said Deborah Imbrogno, the Executive Director for the Residential Center for Healing and Resilience.
"We're one piece of a big journey for these youth and families and it's a privilege to work with them on that," Curtis said.
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