Program offers a guide for troubled youths

Raising a teenager is rarely easy.

When that teenager has a chemical dependency problem, violent tendencies, a criminal background - or all of the above - it can seem nearly impossible.

But some experts say placing troubled teens into a family setting, albeit a highly structured family setting, can be their best shot at learning to be healthy, responsible adults.

That's the goal of Guide Homes, a Montana Department of Corrections-funded program operated by Missoula-based Youth Homes.

Flathead Youth Home in Kalispell has been part of Guide Homes in the past and is trying to revive interest in the program in the Flathead Valley.

In the Guide Homes program, teens who have been released from one of the state's youth correctional facilities are placed in a specialized type of foster care rather than sent to a transitional or group home or back to a potentially harmful family situation.

Their foster parents watch them carefully, providing structure, support and discipline when youths are at a crossroads.

The program began in 2002 when the Department of Corrections approached Youth Homes about creating another option for children who were coming out of Montana's youth correctional facilities.

"A lot of kids that had been adjudicated were not able to return to their biological family home," said Erin Williams, program director for Youth Homes' Dan Fox Family Care Program, of which Guide Homes is a component. "They were going into residential settings or therapeutic group homes, but they would do better in a family. They could be successful in a family.

"We look for the least restrictive environment where a child could be successful."

Foster parents in the Guide Homes program still provide highly structured, intensely supervised settings, Williams said, but youths have some freedom they wouldn't have in a group home or transitional facility.

"They're free to make mistakes, and hopefully learn from them," said Lance Isaak, Flathead Youth Home's program director.

The Guide Homes program has been on hold in the valley while Flathead Youth Home focused on getting a new, permanent facility. In May, the program moved into a new building on the corner of East Oregon and Eighth Avenue East in Kalispell.

Now that Flathead Youth Home finally has a home, it can refocus on helping teens find stability and structure in foster families. It hopes to recruit foster parents this fall.

Foster parents are simply part of a team in the Guide Homes program. Other team members include the youth's parole officer, case manager, mentor, parish nurse and, usually, a therapist. Sometimes the teen's biological parents also are part of the team.

"The biological family can also be involved, if they can be involved in a healthy way," Isaak said.

Foster parents receive an initial 18 hours of training and ongoing training throughout their yearlong commitment. They also receive regular respite care and get a stipend of about $1,600 a month, Williams said.

"It sounds like a significant amount of money, but parents earn it," Isaak said. "And people who are successful in this don't do it for the money."

Jacquelen Spencer and her husband, Eric Amundsen, of Missoula have been foster parents in the Guide Homes program for several years.

"We've been doing it for as long as anybody has in Missoula," Spencer said. "I really can't see stopping. We love kids, and these kids are just regular kids. They're not much different from any of the regular kids that aren't on parole."

Statewide, 51 teens have been in the program over the last five years, Williams said. Eight of them have been welcomed into Spencer and Amundsen's home.

While the youths come with their own unique baggage and challenges, Spencer points out that they usually are coming out of horrible situations, such as alcoholic parents, abuse or abandonment.

"These kids are in situations they didn't ask to be in, and they've done the best they can most of the time," she said.

She strongly encourages people to consider becoming part of the Guide Homes program.

"I'd like to alleviate people's fears of doing this," she said. "They're very, very supportive. You're not hanging out there by yourself."

For more information about the Guide Homes program, contact Isaak at 755-4622.

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or by e-mail at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com