Settling Down in Boys Town : Youths: At the Orange County site, many troubled girls and boys are given a chance to turn their lives around while living in a family environment.

As 16-year-old Patrick gazed across the darkened neighborhood, his eyes settled on a distant hill. There, in the cool of night, the lights of Joplin Boys Ranch sparkled like a beacon.

“I love looking up there,” he said, pointing toward the juvenile detention center. “It reminds me where I could have ended up.”

Certainly, Patrick and the other long-term residents of Boys Town Southern California could have been sent to any of several facilities for troubled youths. Instead, they were given a reprieve of sorts--a chance to turn their lives around at one of the newest satellite campuses established around the country in recent years by Father Flanagan’s Boys Home, better known as Boys Town. In effect, Boys Town was their last chance.

Today, Boys Town Southern California is home to 17 troubled boys and girls from throughout Orange and Los Angeles counties. Most of them were placed there because of continuing problems at home and in the community--including gang activity and drug abuse.

The Orange County Boys Town is a small version of the original Boys Town, a 76-home residential program located in the incorporated village of Boys Town, Neb.

Founded in 1917 by Father Edward J. Flanagan, a Roman Catholic priest who borrowed $90 from a friend to open a home for wayward boys in downtown Omaha, its look has changed significantly in recent years. Gone is compound-style living that for decades characterized Boys Town.

The new Orange County campus, which opened last spring, includes five new homes on Flanagan Road, each comprising about 4,500 square feet. Each home is managed and occupied by a specially trained married couple who have responsibility for up to six youths in addition, in some cases, to their own children.

Currently, 12 boys and five girls are living at Boys Town Southern California; most were placed there by their parents, who pay a fee based on their incomes, or by the Orange County Department of Probation or the Orange Department of Childrens Services. The five homes are expected to be fully occupied by 30 boys and girls by Jan. 1.

“Many of the kids who have trouble, who are in gangs or on drugs, come from families that are disorganized, chaotic and generally dysfunctional,” says Michael L. Riley, site director for Boys Town Southern California, which has offices in nearby Lake Forest. “It’s in our families where we learn our social skills, how to cope with our thoughts and how to behave toward one another. It’s in our families where we learn confidence and self-esteem.”

“When Father Flanagan started Boys Town, he used the premise that there are no bad boys--just bad environment,” Riley says. “The thinking is that if you take these kids, remove them from their bad environments and give them good skills, they will turn out to be productive citizens.”

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Boys Town, which now has 14 facilities outside Nebraska, started its national expansion in 1983 with a satellite campus in Tallahassee, Fla.

John Melingagio, a spokesman for the organization, said the nationwide move was a result of the then new director, Rev. Val J. Peter’s, vision “that children be treated in their own communities.”

Six years later, Boys Town Southern California was launched in Lake Forest. A number of programs eventually were started, among them a short-term emergency care program for abused, neglected or runaway boys and girls based in Long Beach, an in-home therapy for families in crises, and placement of children into foster homes.

In addition, 76 acres of land were purchased in Trabuco Canyon with funds drawn from the Boys Town Foundation Fund.

A series of community meetings outlining plans for the homes were held in South County.

“There are always concerns about the kids,” Riley said, adding that few local residents opposed the establishment of a Boys Town in the area. “There were some concerns that the kids we would enroll might bring chaos to the neighborhood. Of course, that doesn’t happen. At our other locations around the country, it’s pretty clear that our kids are the best monitored and best behaved in the community.

“We have to watch our kids--most parents don’t have to watch their kids. We’re ever vigilant with our kids because they need monitoring and they need limit setting,” he says.

In each home, Boys Town provides a structured environment designed to teach children how to live successfully within a family.

They awaken early each morning, prepare breakfast, complete any other chores that might be required that morning, attend nearby public schools, return home after school, work on their homework and help prepare dinner. Each evening, a family meeting is held to discuss any problems or issues that may have arisen during the day. Solutions usually are arrived at democratically--by a vote of the children.

“What are we teaching them?” Riley asked. “We’re teaching them how to negotiate, how to work through difficulties in an appropriate fashion. We’re teaching them proper communication skills, how to share their discomfort and anger in an appropriate way.”

Boys Town imposes a point system on all new enrollees--they receive points for appropriate behavior and lose points for unacceptable behavior. Those who accumulate a specific number of points earn privileges for the next day, such as additional free time, sweet snacks or use of the television or telephone. Eventually, they progress to a weekly point system, then on to a system of “natural and logical consequences.” Finally, they are discharged, in some cases back to their own homes.

The focus of the program is on teaching values and appropriate social skills, such as accepting instruction and criticism and interacting with others.

“We’re not trying to beat these kids down, then to build them back up again,” Riley said. “The whole purpose is to show these kids that when you engage in inappropriate behavior, there will be consequences. Then, we’ll show them how to replace that behavior with an appropriate behavior.”

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Many of the children at the Orange County campus have similar backgrounds--they were members of gangs, used illegal drugs, engaged in fights and experienced significant family conflicts. One such person is Grant, 17, who entered Boys Town Southern California in May.

Now a junior at nearby Silverado High School, Grant works part time as an office assistant at Boys Town Southern California’s Lake Forest headquarters. He is eager to make something of his once-conflicted life.

“I like it a lot here,” Grant said. “Before I arrived I was getting straight Fs. Now, I’m getting straight A’s. I’m hoping to go on to college once I leave here.”

Patrick, a sophomore at Trabuco Hills High School, also has high hopes for himself once he leaves Boys Town. He plans to use his past involvement with drugs to help others.

“I want to work in drug rehabilitation,” he said, adding, “If I hadn’t come here, I’d probably be living in the gutter.”

Grant, Patrick and two younger children with similar backgrounds live at Boys Town with Andrew and Andrea Arambula and their two children, ages 1 and 3. The Arambulas, who share a comfortable apartment at the rear of the house, attended an intensive three-week training session at Boys Town, Neb., to prepare them for their positions as “family teachers.” As part of their ongoing training, they meet regularly with Kathryn L. Moscrey, the coordinator for residential family services.

The Arambulas’ home is located in a cul-de-sac and is surrounded by four other Boys Town residences. The five girls who are participating in the program--Boys Town began accepting girls in 1979--live across the street and are allowed to interact with the boys.

“We don’t take kids who are dangerous,” Riley said. “Those kids go to locked facilities. Most of our kids have either made a suicidal attempt or gesture or have at least had some suicidal thoughts. There really is nothing to fear from these kids.”

He added that each child who is admitted to the program agrees to stay for at least one year; the average length of stay is 18 months. Only children who appear likely to benefit from a long-term stay at Boys Town are allowed to be sworn in as “citizens.”

So far, only a few Boys Town Southern California enrollees have cause problems, and those have been minor. Two ran away, although both quickly asked to return and were welcomed back.

Since 1989, nearly 600 youths have been successfully treated through the various programs offered at Boys Town Southern California.

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Shawnmari Kaiser, a clinical social worker at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital, said she learned of Boys Town Southern California through her own research and has recommended its programs to parents and psychiatrists. She described the program as “wonderful.”

“The residential program is very supportive of the family unit, and that’s important,” she said. “They don’t try to take the place of the parents; rather, they think in terms of reuniting the child with the family.”

She added, “I’ve recommended their parenting class to a number of parents.”

Through the years, one of Boys Town’s most staunch supporters has been Bobs Watson. Watson, a child actor who later spent more than two decades as a Methodist minister, co-starred in the 1939 film “Boys Town” and in the 1941 sequel “Men of Boys Town.”

Watson, who credits his brief relationship with Flanagan on the set of those movies with helping to guide him toward the ministry, said he is “ecstatic” about the establishment of a Boys Town campus in Orange County, where he owns a home.

“I’m glad to see it come to fruition,” he said. “Boys Town is a part of me--I really mean that. Father Flanagan had such an impact on me that I can never see a child in any way other than the way in which Father Flanagan did.

“Father Flanagan loved me, not because I was a movie star but he loved the boy. That really impressed me.

“Boys Town is the hallmark of all charities. It’s a modern miracle.”