You made all the difference!
A letter from the CEO
You were there when a 15-year-old girl found hope for her future in the pasture behind a horse barn. You were there when a boy wandering homeless on the streets needed a safe place to sleep. You were right there.
You were there for 954 young Idahoans learning to heal and to grow.
In fiscal year 2022 (July 2021–June 2022), Idaho Youth Ranch met new challenges we’d never faced, and we grew and learned together. I am so grateful you were there with us every step of the way.
In the last 12 months:
- You helped over 954 young people with programs and services that changed the trajectory of their lives.
- You provided kids 9–17 in crisis with 1,077 shelter days.
- You gave 32 teens their first experience in the workforce.
- You made 3,330 clinical sessions full of healing, hope, and resilience possible for kids who were struggling with loss, trauma, and adversity.
In a year full of growth, you have been there with our kids for every step of the journey to healing.
On behalf of every breakthrough, moment of insight, future changed, family brought together, and young person served . . .
Thank you for being there.
Scott Curtis, LMSW
CEO
When kids come to Idaho Youth Ranch, we never ask, “What’s wrong with you?” Instead we ask, “What happened to you?”
Between July 2021 and June 2022, Idaho Youth Ranch served over 420 youth through one or more clinical services, including outpatient therapy, Equine Therapy, or residential care. Prior to coming to Idaho Youth Ranch, these young people reported multiple traumas, including but not limited to:
Trauma has a dramatic impact on a young person’s developing brain. When kids experience childhood trauma, they react with a wide array of behaviors that prevent them from being able to function or thrive in the world. By giving these young people access to the proven therapies and services they need to stop their trauma from holding them back, you have changed the trajectory of their entire lives.
You have been a critical part of helping these young people heal. Below are some of the challenges and diagnoses the young people at Idaho Youth Ranch were struggling with when they began treatment at Idaho Youth Ranch.
She was terrified when she walked through the door. A lifetime of fear, rejection, and anxiety told her that this experience would be a nightmare.
Emma didn’t know that was the day her life would change forever. She thought she was getting a job—just some work experience to make her mother happy. She could barely make eye contact with her manager. Emma wasn’t the type of kid to draw attention to herself.
Emma joined YOUTHWORKS!—an 8-week workplace readiness program with career coaching, a paid internship at an Idaho Youth Ranch Thrift Store, and weekly workshops covering interviews, job applications, and resumes. When she finished the program eight weeks later, she stayed on as an employee at Idaho Youth Ranch.
Krissy couldn’t catch her breath. The room seemed to spin around her. It was another panic attack. She was only 10 years old. She’d been having panic attacks since her parents’ divorce. When it finally passed, she just sobbed at her own helplessness. Krissy didn’t know what to do. Going to school seemed impossible. How could she live like this?
She began weekly sessions with an Idaho Youth Ranch therapist. She learned how to regulate her emotions. Your support taught her healthy ways to cope with anxiety. She even taught her mother the skills she was learning.
Together, they triumphed over the panic, fear, and constant anxiety.
Today, Krissy is a happy, healthy 11-year-old girl. She no longer struggles with daily panic attacks or constant anxiety. You gave her what she needed to thrive.
Ethan was weird. That’s what everyone said. The last to be picked for anything. The last kid anyone wanted to be around. No one wanted Ethan.
You were there for Ethan’s first session of Equine Therapy. His heart broke and his shoulders fell as he watched the horses run away.
“Not even the horses want to be around me,” he thought.
Then, from out of the dust, Promise—the first filly born at Idaho Youth Ranch, fresh from training—came racing up to Ethan. Ethan’s tears of gratitude fell softly into the dust of the pasture. Promise had chosen him to be her first kid. He never knew you were there the whole time.
“I was admitted into foster care at the age of 10. I was a troubled kid and had a lot of issues. Especially my anger.”
When Johnathon participated in Idaho Youth Ranch therapies, he was a senior in high school, still wrestling the demons that followed him out of foster care. He teetered between rage and sorrow for the childhood he never had. He used drugs and alcohol to numb the pain.
It took months of therapy before Johnathon realized that he was following the same path his family had followed. The path that landed him in foster care.
"I wanted the cycle to end with me."
Two years after Johnathon completed therapy, he came back to Idaho Youth Ranch to apply for an alumni scholarship to pursue degrees in Aviation Maintenance Technology and Business.
You gave Johnathon the scholarship he needed to support his education and build his future.
He could barely contain his excitement. Never before in his short life had he gotten to do something this exciting. How could he when he was living in the car with his mom?
He watched in wonder, unable to decide what he would do first—maybe a waterslide like in the movies! He had only lived at Idaho Youth Ranch Hays House for a few days, and (can you believe it?) he got to go to the water park for the first time!
David is 12 and is on the autism spectrum. He had been homeless with his mother for years before he was placed at Idaho Youth Ranch Hays House. He has never been so happy. He can’t believe that there are so many grown-ups who like to be around him. He plays chess with the program manager and gets to feed the fish (he loves fish!). He even got a special quilt with fish on it. He cried when the staff told him he could keep it.
Thanks to you, David no longer lives in a car. Idaho Youth Ranch worked with organizations that serve adults so that his mom could get the support she needs to recover from homelessness, while David is safe, happy, and supported.
Panic struck Marie as she watched those two little lines on the pregnancy test fade into existence. What was she going to do? The single mother was already struggling to make ends meet for herself and her two children.
Marie loves her children. Despite her own difficult, broken childhood, Marie is trying so very hard to be a good mother.
It was for that reason that she made the most difficult decision of her life: she allowed her baby to be adopted.
Months later, Alley and Robert got the call. Marie was in labor. Their baby was on the way.
Thanks to you, Marie knows she did what was best for her baby. Marie, Alley, and Robert have a loving, special bond that will stay with them forever. Best of all, Baby Grace will grow up loved and cared for knowing that her birth mother and her adoptive parents made the right choice for her.
“All I want for Christmas is a job,” Paul said, fidgeting nervously across the desk from the Idaho Youth Ranch thrift store manager.
Paul has special needs and has always wanted to have a job. To him, a job meant independence and the opportunity to do something that everyone else gets to do.
Because of his disabilities, he knew getting a job would be a challenge. His mother was waiting anxiously in the store just outside the office where he was being interviewed. He wanted to make her proud.
The manager watched Paul swaying in his seat, trying not to show how touched he was by the request.
The manager smiled, asked Paul to wait there, and stepped out to make a phone call to see if he could secure a job coach—someone who could be there with Paul to help him in his day-to-day tasks.
Today, Paul is still part of our team. He works hard and loves sorting the donated goods that come into his store where his co-workers have become his friends. He loves helping kids pick out their free Ranch Reader books.
Paul is proud to be like you, part of a mission he loves.
A new day is dawning for Idaho’s kids. With your support, we will change the standard of care for generations of Idaho’s kids.
Until now, over 100 young people each year have been told the “solution” for all of their trauma and pain was to be ripped away from their family and friends and sent out of state. Families could not be part of the healing. Transitioning back home could not be managed well. Aftercare was virtually impossible.
Thanks to you, Idaho’s kids will have a brighter future.
The Residential Center for Healing & Resilience will be a beacon of hope for generations of kids and families and serve as a model for the nation for mental and behavioral care. Every aspect of the campus—from the room sizes to the staffing model—is designed to surround young people with the environment and support they need to heal, grow, and thrive.
City of Coeur d’Alene HUD Community Development Block Grant
Columbia Bank
Family and Youth Services Bureau Runaway and Homeless Youth Program
Idaho Council on Domestic Violence and Victim Assistance
Innovia Foundation
Julius C. Jeker Foundation
Leuthold Family Foundation
M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust
Micron Technology Foundation
Numerica Charitable Fund
Peel Baliszewski Family Foundation
St. Luke’s Community Health Improvement Fund
Taco Bell Foundation
The CDM Fund in the Idaho Community Foundation
The COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund for Idaho Southwest
in the Idaho Community Foundation
The Gibney Family Foundation
The Gladys E. Langroise Advised Fund in the Idaho Community Foundation
The Idaho Community Foundation
The Kissler Family Foundation Philanthropic Gift Fund in the Idaho Community Foundation
The Whittenberger Foundation
United Way of Treasure Valley
Because you were here, hundreds of Idaho’s kids are on a path to healing and hope. Futures have been rewritten and the open hurts of emotional scars are beginning to heal in the hearts of vulnerable kids.
But there is still work to be done.
We know that there are kids in need. There are families who are looking for an answer that might bring the light of hope and joy back into their lives.
You will be that light. Today, Idaho’s kids are still struggling. According to the 2019 Idaho Youth Risk Behavior Survey by the Centers for Disease Control:
- 1 in 5 (21.2%) Idaho youth were bullied at school.
- 2 in 5 (38.9%) Idaho youth experienced symptoms of depression.
- 1 in 5 (21.6%) Idaho youth seriously considered suicide.
- 1 in 10 (9.6%) Idaho youth attempted suicide.
- 1 in 10 (10.5%) Idaho youth live or have lived with substance or alcohol abuse in the home.
While we celebrate the incredible successes of the young people your generous support has served, we look to the future with determination and commitment.
Idaho’s kids still need us. Thankfully, we know you will be there to help us continue in our mission to unite for Idaho’s youth with accessible programs and services that nurture hope, healing, and resilience.
We unite for Idaho's youth by providing accessible programs and services that nurture hope, healing, and resilience.
Board of Directors
Leroy D. Custer, Chair
Sheila Hennessey, Chair-Elect
Harry Amend
Liz Beem
Jim Bratnober
Angie Harrison
Jim Johnston, MD
Travis Leach
Brinnon Garrett Mandel
Rick Rietmann
Leanne Rousseau, MD
Brian J. Scott
Ivy Smith
Laura Smith
Chris Taylor
Deanna Turner
Julie VanOrden
Ron Ashley, Director Emeritus
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Scott Curtis, CEO