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Ten-year-old James is mainly interested in outdoor activities, like playing football and basketball with the boys. He is excited about an upcoming ice cream party at school and a soccer game on Saturday. Someday, he dreams of living on a ranch where he can ride horses. The only thing that separates James from any other fourth-grader is he lives in a house with eight other boys through a program called “Progress Ranch Treatment Center.”
This Davis non-profit organization serves as a temporary safe-space for 8 to 12-year-old boys who have various emotional difficulties that keep them from living in foster homes. The program offers resources such as therapy, tutoring and mentoring to help these boys avoid what director Russ Kusama calls “foster care roulette.” Russ explains the basic problem that keeps most of these boys from succeeding in a foster home: “Unconsciously, they don’t like intimacy, so when they live in a foster home they have a hard time dealing with closeness with people who are supposed to be mom and dad, so they act out.” The goal of Progress Ranch is “to get them ready to live in foster care or a relative’s home,” Russ says. Ideally, this process will take about a year, but often it takes longer.
The house where James has lived since August of 2005 is called Oak House, and it is certainly a lively environment. Boys are playing games, cleaning rooms and yelling back and forth about who has and hasn’t finished their homework. James, however, is not a part of this; he is calmly putting on a nice sweater for his interview, and he seems more excited than nervous.
This Davis non-profit organization serves as a temporary safe-space for 8 to 12-year-old boys who have various emotional difficulties that keep them from living in foster homes. The program offers resources such as therapy, tutoring and mentoring to help these boys avoid what director Russ Kusama calls “foster care roulette.” Russ explains the basic problem that keeps most of these boys from succeeding in a foster home: “Unconsciously, they don’t like intimacy, so when they live in a foster home they have a hard time dealing with closeness with people who are supposed to be mom and dad, so they act out.” The goal of Progress Ranch is “to get them ready to live in foster care or a relative’s home,” Russ says. Ideally, this process will take about a year, but often it takes longer.
The house where James has lived since August of 2005 is called Oak House, and it is certainly a lively environment. Boys are playing games, cleaning rooms and yelling back and forth about who has and hasn’t finished their homework. James, however, is not a part of this; he is calmly putting on a nice sweater for his interview, and he seems more excited than nervous.