In 1917, Father Edward J. Flanagan, a Roman Catholic Priest and an Irish immigrant, founded a home for troubled boys in downtown Omaha, Nebraska. Since then, Boys Town has provided food, clothing, shelter, education, spiritual guidance, and medical care to homeless, neglected and abused boys. In 1979, the program extended this care to girls. Approximately 60 percent of the children and youth are boys and 40 percent are girls. About 40 percent are children of color.

Boys Town, Inc. is an incorporated village in Nebraska with 76 family homes, a U.S. post office, fire and police departments, chapels, two schools, and a working farm. Boys Town accepts "troubled children" from across the country who are neglected or abused. Ranging in ages from 9 to 19, the program’s main caveat when accepting children is that the children must want to come to Boys Town. While the founder was a Catholic priest, Boys Town holds no religious affiliation and merely encourages spiritual growth in the children.

Programs

Boys Town offers a wide range of programs to children and their families:

• Long-term residential care
• Emergency services (short-term emergency care for run-aways)
• Family preservation services (intensive in-home treatment)
• Treatment foster family services (foster parents recruited and trained by Boys Town in effective treatment methods for troubled youth)
• Common Sense Parenting (parent training sessions)
• Boys Town National Hotline (1-800-448-3000)
• National Resource and Training Center
• Boys Town National Research Hospital
• Boys Town Reading Center
• Program Planning, Research, and Evaluation (PPRE)
• Boys Town Press

While the National Historic Landmark Village of Boys Town is headquartered in Nebraska, there are numerous locations throughout the United States, including Southern California, New England and Florida.

Boys Town Educational Model (BTEM)

The BTEM is the modern version of a program used by Boys Town in the 1970’s, called the Teaching Family Model (TFM). The TFM was used to emphasize social skills and positive interaction amongst the children and youth living in the family-style homes. With the success of the in-home program, Boys Town expanded the TFM to be used in middle and high schools. The premise of the program was incorporated into the Boys Town curriculum and helped to improve communication between parents and teachers, as well as to improve student behavior. Currently, many public school programs request training in the BTEM and use the model throughout their school districts. The BTEM has four components:

1. Social Skills Curriculum - 16 basic skills which are important for effective adult relations, peer relations, and classroom and school activities
2. Teacher Interaction - Proactive teaching, corrective teaching, and crisis teaching
3. Administrative Intervention - Consistent and supportive response to serious discipline problems
4. Motivation System - Positive motivation and empowerment

By providing teachers with the tools to teach prosocial behavior to students, the BTEM has greatly improved discipline and student behavior, as well as teacher satisfaction. The Boys Town Educational Model is an effective social skills building program which is used throughout the country in many local schools.

Does the Boys Town Model Work in School Settings?

Boys Town, Inc. serves about 850 children and youth every year, with each child averaging a 20 month stay. In 1996, Boys Town cared for 29,000 children, directly assisted nearly 380,000 on the hotline, and indirectly assisted over 750,000 through outreach and training. Additional outcome data from Boys Town Educational Model include:

• Students’ on-task behavior increased by 10 percent after the first year of BTEM and 17 percent after the second year.
• Teachers were significantly more satisfied with the effectiveness of the BTEM approach to classroom discipline and the social behavior of their students (p. < .0001) than they were before the program was implemented.
• There were significantly fewer office referrals for both verbal and physical violence in elementary schools studied (p. < .01).
• There was a 58 percent decrease in the number of office referrals in middle schools studied.

The entire Boys Town, Inc. program has stringent evaluation efforts both for their own programs and for outside endeavors. Their systematic evaluation efforts are part of their commitment to continuous improvement and refinement. The Boys Town National Resource and Training Center (NRTC) provides all training services and is the primary link between Boys Town and other child and youth care organizations. Boys Town serves as an important resource to local communities and organizations to help children and their families grow and prosper.

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