There are many residential treatment programs for troubled children and teens, ranging from inpatient psychiatric units to wilderness adventures to boot camps. But to my knowledge, there is only one which is specifically focused on international adoptees. The Seattle Times recently ran a story, reported by Bonnie Miller Rubin of the Chicago Tribune, about The Ranch for Kids, a ranch in rural Montana currently housing 24 children who will stay for about six to twelve months. Some of these children have molested other children, stolen, vandalized and set fires. Most of them have fetal alcohol syndrome, a mental illness, or reactive attachment disorder—or all three.
Joyce Sterkel, who runs the ranch with her husband Harry Sutley and grown son Bill Sutley, is a nurse who spent two years working with a humanitarian organization in Russia in the early 1990s. She witnessed the conditions in the orphanages there and says, “For the kids, it’s about basic, animal survival.” Sterkel later adopted a ten-year-old she had met in Russia. Two years later, she learned about a 14-year-old Russian boy serving time in juvenile detention for attempting to poison his second adoptive mother. The boy and three siblings had been placed in an adoptive home in Colorado, which had quickly unraveled. The siblings were split up and placed in different states, and Sasha’s new adoptive mother ordered him to just forget about his siblings. “I went nuts,” Sasha recalled.
Sterkel adopted Sasha, followed by a third adopted son to join her three biological children. Somehow word spread that this Montana woman who spoke Russian could offer a respite to parents in crisis. Soon Sterkel and Sutley were caring for a dozen troubled kids. In the early days, Sterkel says, she didn’t have much of a treatment plan beyond keeping the youngsters busy.
The school now has several staff and charges typical tuition of about three thousand dollars a month, for room, board, school, and therapeutic activities. Sasha now also helps on the ranch, connecting angry, seemingly unreachable kids.
“Here, everyday life is therapy,” says 35-year-old Bill Sutley, an electrical engineer by training who now helps his parents by serving as ranch manager, math teacher, and jack-of-all-trades.
The family says that some of the most therapeutic moments are with the horses. “Push a horse and he’ll push back, while hefty doses of kindness, patience and respect usually will yield results. It’s a way to connect with angry, aggressive children and nudge them toward new insights.”
The ranch’s original philosophy is unchanged—self-esteem is found through teamwork and productivity. The first half of the day is devoted to academics; the second half to chores such as milking cows, digging ditches and mending fences, and of course to the horses. Traditional counseling is available at the parent’s request.
About 150 children have been through the program in the last 3 ½ years, with only six being expelled. About one-third of the children return home upon leaving the ranch. Another third, those over 16, join the Job Corps, a vocational training and education program run by the U.S. Department of labor. Another third will move on to new foster or adoptive families because their parents have relinquished their parental rights.