BY GRETCHEN KEISER

Staff Writer

ATLANTA--Boys Town will begin a program to serve teenage girls in the five-county metro Atlanta area who are in difficulty with their families and in the juvenile justice system.

The program, which will include a staff secure facility located in a proposed new building at I-20 and Candler Road in DeKalb County, will provide a short-term shelter for girls. They will receive mentoring, training in life skills and a highly structured environment to try and change the direction of their lives. The shelter can serve up to 16 girls at a time and about 300 per year.

The Boys Town program, which is in place in 10 other U.S. cities, is considered a model program for girls, said Father Val Peter, the executive director of Boys Town, during a recent trip to Atlanta.

“There is almost nobody in America who wants to deal with these girls,” Father Peter said. “Girls bring a whole different set of problems. It is an area of unmet need. We do this. We’re good at this.”

Girls 13 to 18 years old will be eligible and will be drawn from the juvenile justice system in Fulton, DeKalb, Clayton, Gwinnett and Cobb counties.

Unlike boys, teenage girls are not eligible for boot camp in Georgia, Father Peter said. Current options leave juvenile court judges with limited choices like sending girls back home to family members who are not equipped to help them. Many need treatment for drug abuse and mental illness, Father Peter added. Many have suffered abuse or neglect throughout their lives and are contemplating suicide.

A typical 15-year-old served by the identical program in Philadelphia is a mixture of needy child and young woman in crisis. “She has been using drugs and probably brings her teddy bear with her,” Father Peter said.

Leaders like DeKalb CEO Liane Levetan, DeKalb Judge Gregory Adams and Fulton Judge Sanford Jones are serving on the advisory council for the project, along with Msgr. Edward Dillon, pastor of Holy Spirit Church, Atlanta. The co-chairs are John J. Gillin, senior vice president of the Coca-Cola Co., and Walter Hoff, president of NDC Health Information Services.

Three acres of land just off I-20 at Candler Road which formerly housed a Service Merchandise has been donated to Boys Town by Pinnacle Storage. A $3.3 million campaign to build a 10,000-square-foot building and underwrite initial operating expenses is underway and has raised $1 million.

Started by a Catholic priest, Father Edward Flanagan, in 1917 in Nebraska, Boys Town has always served children of all denominations and since 1975 has taken the model beyond the original campus to other locations and other applications. Among its expanded efforts are a 24-hour national hotline with trained staff to help children in need, training and support for foster parents, and work with learning disabled children.

Boys Town began operating in DeKalb County in 1996 with a program of intensive training for foster parents of children needing treatment.

In the new program for teenage girls, “we are doing something very powerful and very homespun,” Father Peter said.

The program teaches skills and builds relationships, the priest said, in a structured 30-day sheltered experience. The program includes professionally trained staff, home and family assessment, psychological, educational and behavioral testing and diagnosis, as well as modeling respect, good relationships and faith.

After the residential component ends, girls will be placed in other facilities, in treatment foster care or reunited with their families. Boys Town will provide at least six months of follow-up for each girl with at least weekly contact and 24-hour support.

Despite the skepticism that a teenager already in the court system can be turned around, Father Peter said the Boys Town model has proved effective in other cities, with a recidivism rate in the court system of only eight percent of girls in treatment.

“We do not mollycoddle,” he said. “We are asking these kids to make enormous sacrifices to get better and eight out of 10 do.”

Citing Psalm 23, the priest who has served as Boys Town director since 1985 said, “These kids are walking in the valley of darkness. The Lord says we are to take their hand.”