My son ran away April 19 from the ly.s house thay should b e fired and then thay put him in the ina house thay let him run off he lived on the streets for 9 days before we got him back this place is no good the people in charge of him are heartless thay gave us no help and did not look for him me and my wife went there to omaha n.b to look for him we were up from 6 am to 2 or 3 in the morning ever day but not them thank to Facebook and all the people that looking out we got him back het was dirty and homeless as you can be what ever you do do not send your kid here we are having this place investigation of nh r a l these people needs to be fired the father of LH
My son entered the residential side in July he's been to the hospital 5 times now in months, multiple fights, and even started drugs at their facility. When I called them out about these things they now monitor our calls and even take the phone from him when we talk they don't let us attend meetings with staff and I M worried for his safety when I made the decision to get him in this program I had high hopes now I'm worried for his safety I would never recommend this program. My sons case person Amalica is not afraid to lie to cover her mistakes and works very hard against the parents to keep the kids there as a paycheck only. My son is in need of help and they are just brainwashing him against me now
Horrible!!! The staff at Omaha Boystown is very rude, they don’t know how to handle situations, and that lie to cover up for each other!!! Kathy, the supervisor, lied to us in so many ways!!! She didn’t handle the assault of my son in a proper way!!! To this day she keeps changing her story about taking pictures of my sons injuries and the pictures are gone!!! She keeps changing her story saying that she knows where the pictures are at. She gives names of people that she sent them to and they have no idea what pictures I am referring to. The kid that assaulted my son is left in a home with six other innocent children putting them all at risk for this kid to assault them!!! After confronting Kathy, she then proceeded to hide and remove my son from the home and quit communicating. At this point I do not feel that my son is safe at BOYSTOWN and we are in the process of taking legal action to get him out of there!!!
The family teachers are full of crap to begin with!!! The house that he was in we were told was the best, but yet he got assaulted, and the family teachers put on huge acts as if they truly care they act like the kids are hotcakes and just take their stuff, wrap it up and send them out the door like they just don’t have feelings they do not care about your child!! The student family teachers will lie treat your kid like crap and punish them for things that they did not do. To top it off they do not monitor the kids and keep an eye on them to make sure that their safety is there a number one priority. My son did not get any medical attention after this kid assaulted him. I had to go to the hire people to even bring that up and it was days after his assault that they were even going to set up an appointment to have them checked on his injuries.
Do not send your kid to BOYSTOWN!!!!
DO NOT TAKE YOUR CHILDREN HERE! If your child needs help, DO NOT send them here. They go off of punishment and reward, not therapy. They do not teach you real life skills or how the real world works. My friend was here for 3 years, 9th-11th grade and she still cannot drive or form lasting relationships. When I went here, it was like jail. I was being punished for hating myself and feeling suicidal. There were multiple favorites and they wouldn’t have to follow the rules. Staff will put you in danger by not dealing with sexual harassment. You are barely even allowed to speak to the opposite gender; which means when you come out of there there is an extremely heightened chance of being hypersexualized, and not know how to keep and form romantic relationships. But when you’re in a house full of sexually mature girls….they will force you into things you do not want to do, not only that but staff will not do anything, except to punish you for something you did not even want. DONT EVEN GET ME STARTED WITH THE “family teachers” these are grown up bullies who have INSANE control issues. then once you’re manipulated and brainwashed to the point where you love these people, they’ll block your number and any way to contact them once you leave. Not only that, but myself and my friend have matched with MULTIPLE higher ups in boystown who went on to send us naked pictures, knowing who we both were. THIS PLACE IS A HELLHOLE AND WILL RUIN YOUR CHILD! there are other places to seek help, do not listen to reviews from the 80s (which let’s not forget about the sex trafficking going on!!!) this place will do the opposite of help your child it will do the opposite and you will have a 25 year old who doesn’t know how to drive or keep a job or any relationships.
Although it's been many years since I was a youth in Boys Town, this place still haunts me. It's deeply affected my ability to trust my intuition and navigate the world. Their model is brainwashing, and didn't help me; it only hurt me. I left there with CPTSD and an eating disorder, worse off than before I went there. I was just a kid who was having a hard time. I wasn't dangerous. I wasn't breaking laws. I was just depressed and needed love. No one deserves to be locked away against their will with their autonomy entirely taken from them. Boys Town promises a "Family Environment" when, in reality, all they give you is adults who treat you like laborers and emotional punching bags. If there's one thing I've learned to be true it's that putting anyone in complete power over helpless, struggling kids in an isolated environment with no consequences for their actions creates unhealthy and unsafe power dynamics that ruin lives. Their "evidence-based research" is all biased (they do the research themselves, so of course they are going to say good things about it). The organizations that give them their Accreditations are also almost entirely made up of board members who either currently work at Boys Town or have in the past--just look at the work history of the Teaching-Family Association's (TFA) Executive Director. Her career started at Boys Town and includes many other unsafe Teen Treatment centers. Any organization that has a net worth of over 1.5 Billion dollars can afford to treat the children they serve without a shred of humanity or compassion and pay for the good reviews and biased accreditations. Spend your money elsewhere; putting it here only pays to hurt more kids.
I can't speak for a few but I can speak for many I was in notation in the late 80's I was a child with a severe issue with authority along with a few of my friends who ended up there we were involved with gangs drugs violence you name it in fact I can easily say I know we'll over 100 kids who went through the location program who are extremely grateful for the turn around they provided these people could have and many most likely would have ended up in prison or dead had it not been for them many of the ones who graduated from there went on to live very successful lives quite a few with full ride scholarships to college after graduation I realize everyone can't be helped that's not reality but for the ones who did utilize the program for what it had to offer it was a tremendous help I was a knucklehead and left early had I stayed and not complained about what I didn't like about and taken advantage of the things they did offer my life most likely would've turned out way better then it did heck to this day I utilize some of the learning and teaching techniques I learned from there even though I did leave early I can say without a doubt being there and learning what I learned aided in my survival quite literally
I guess I can say that I was an at-risk youth who was forced to live here. It really didn't help me. We only were provided with therapy once a month, which is far below what would have been needed to help me. I was forced to take a religion class, where whenever I spoke up about homophobia or sexism that was actually being taught in the classroom, I was sent to the office and told to write an apology to the teacher I "disrespected." Their sex education class was also a religion class, so it was based on being anti- contraception and pro-abstinence, (which statistically, is not effective in reducing pregnancy in teenagers. One time I had to eat dinner at the leader 's (not sure what else to call him) house on campus and I was told to not say I was a vegetarian and to "eat around the meat," which was unacceptable to me because I had been vegetarian for a few years and I was very repulsed by meat. Apparently the leader had, in the past, argued with a kid about vegetarianism, which is disrespectful and just not okay. Also I was not supposed to bring up that I was an atheist, as not to get on the leader's "bad side." I did not have a voice at this place. And neither will any child who goes here, whether they are very religious and agree with everything Boys Town has to say. So, If you are considering privately placing your child here for reasons such as mental health issues, depression, anxiety, or poor schoolwork, think again. Consider a therapeutic boarding school or therapeutic wilderness program. Boys Town is based on punishment and reward, not rehabilitation and therapy. I know this from experience. I would say, personally, Boys Town made me more depressed and anxious. Please consider other options, if you have a choice and want a therapeutic environment for your child.