My Dear Friends,
Today we announce a significant milestone in our history with a new focus and a new look.
We are celebrating our 90th birthday and all the new beginnings it means in the lives of children and families. While we celebrate our history, I want you to do something important – I want you to look forward.
We need to provide a future for America’s children and families. Children need us as much today as they did 90 years ago in a drafty, old Victorian house in downtown Omaha.
Father Flanagan turned that drafty, old house into a home – where abused, abandoned, neglected and homeless children could find success. We measure everything by Father Flanagan’s vision and ground-breaking work. As children and society change, so must we to further that powerful and much-needed mission.
How can we do that in this modern society? In spite of all of our affluence and technology, children and families still are left by the wayside. The stories our children tell are horrifying. The sheer numbers of children and families in need tax our systems of care. Think of how many other problems go undetected – until it is too late.
When all looked hopeless, Father Flanagan went to the streets and started helping one kid at a time. We are going to follow his lead. To address these problems, we are going to be street smart and savvy in an effort to provide better care and better results for children and families.
To do this, we are establishing an integrated continuum of care with one thing in mind – what is best for a child.
We know a child has the best chance of success in his or her own family. That is why we are focusing on expanding our programs to work with families in their homes.
We also know some children need specialized and intensive care while someone helps the family put itself back together. That is why we have foster care, intensive treatment services and family homes.
We surround all of these services with coordinated health care and a research base that ensures successful outcomes for the child. All of Boys Town’s outcomes are based on the child’s success, not on classifications, bureaucracy or state budgets.
Our continuum of care provides the best possible care for the child at the time he or she needs it. We believe this will create success for the child and the family, and for the agencies trying to assist them. It also will be more cost effective.
We believe this approach is what Father Flanagan had in mind – a continuum of care that saves children and heals them and their families in body, mind and spirit. One that provides rehabilitation instead of prison to make children productive members of society.
This holiday season, we ask you to join us in celebrating 90 years of keeping Father Flanagan's dream alive and ask you to help us carry on his dream. Thank you being a part of our family and a beacon of hope for thousands of hurting children.
God’s blessings,
Father Steven Boes
National Executive Director
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