“How old are you? Like, when’s your birthday?” I had a chance to sit on the grass next to a circle of kids on one of our campuses. They were waiting for a tardy ice cream truck, and they were so patient. Their topic of conversation was age.…
Services for Kids
One of the great challenges of being a trauma survivor is hypervigilance, which means being overly alert to danger. For children at the Ranch who have experienced abuse, neglect, or other traumatic events, nothing in life has been predictable and most surprises have caused pain. As a result, their senses and emotions are always on high alert.…
With all she has been through, Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch is a kind of home to her. It is a place where people think about her, pray for her, cheer for her, and believe in her. There may be no other place that has met that measure for her. My prayer is that she and her fiancé’ can create a home for and with each other.…
Every child experiences adversity. During a "typical childhood," a child will experience 3 or 4 ACES. When adversity is prolonged or extreme or consists of multiple types of adversity, those events begin to affect brain development and behavioral response.…
For the last several years, our Minot Wellness and Spiritual Life staff have partnered to create a week-long “Ranch Olympics” during the month of August. The entire campus, kids, and staff, find ways to participate and engage. Very few of the children at Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch have participated in organized sports. The trauma and chaos they have faced have made it hard for them to be "joiners."…
Dr. Hannah Baczynski, Dakota Family Services Psychologist, showed this video in a staff training she did on understanding children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Her training centered around debunking myths about children with ADHD, one of the greatest ones being they could quit their behaviors if they just tried hard enough. With most of the children at Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch having some level of ADHD or a related diagnosis, it is important we understand their reality.…
On Monday of this week, I was in the nutrition center with Sydney when one of our girls came up. She had been one of the first girls Sydney had interacted with and had seen Sydney learn, while she herself was healing. They have a special friendship.…
Yesterday at lunch I sat down next to a child I hadn’t met as he has only been with us for five days. He’s a handsome child—dark eyes, dark hair, those kinds of gangly limbs kids get in their teenage years. He looked at me through too-long bangs.…
When I first came to the Ranch and learned this, it surprised me. Here are kids with all different kinds of trauma-related behaviors. Some have attention deficit issues, others deal with anger or noise triggers, and others are uncomfortable in groups. They may be depressed or anxious or struggle with bipolar or schizophrenia diagnoses. They have seen much in their young lives. Yet, they like old, boring, low-tech Bingo.…
Anyone who has worked in any kind of workplace has been approached to purchase “stuff” from the children of co-workers. Boy Scout popcorn, Girl Scout cookies, wrapping paper, butter braids, and raffle tickets. You name it, I’ve bought it. Actually, one of my life rules is, “Buy what kids are selling.”…
Yes, some of the children at Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch have “gotten into trouble.” One hundred percent of the kids at the Ranch have endured some sort of trauma.…
One of the great tenets of working with trauma survivors is, “Never ask what is wrong with the child. Instead, ask what happened to the child.” A child who has survived trauma will have developed ways to survive. Once they are out of the painful situation, they still rely on those maladaptive skills.…
What he realized, he said, was that life wasn’t a cohesive, well-put-together journey. The stories came out of order and at unexpected times. They didn’t necessarily build on each other, but rather stood alone as life lessons.…
One of the hardest questions Ranch children ask is “Why did this happen to me?” They want to give meaning to the abuse, violence, molestation, or neglect they have experienced. They want us to explain the purpose of the personal war they have been in.…
Jim Vetter, Vice President of Treatment Services and Government Relations, Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch, is the 2022 recipient of the Walt Odegaard Leadership Award, presented by the North Dakota Association of Nonprofit Organizations (NDANO).…
She recently started a lecture series to train Ranch staff on some of the mental health diagnoses we see more frequently in the children who come to us. The first session was on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). With a wide range of staff expertise and training in her audience, she used many analogies to help each person understand. The one I will hang on to when I am trying to explain the behavior and reactions of our children is her analogy about trauma behaviors being, “like wearing a winter coat on a Florida beach.”…
The best part for me, however, was getting to spend time with these heroes in the background. I heard them express how when they are making decisions they think about how it will feel to the kids. They reflected on meals that brought joy to particular children. They talked about fixing damage in walls made by a child too angry for words and spoke with compassion about wanting to do repairs quickly. They spoke of children by name, and about problem-solving with program and education staff. They laughed. We prayed.…
Eight amazing young people graduated last week from Dakota Memorial School, the on-site school of Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch! What a great opportunity to celebrate them! Each and every one of them has overcome so much to take that walk while “Pomp and Circumstance” echoes around them. Every year I get all teary-eyed as the kids walk in.…
We do a whole lot of training at Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch. Each of us goes through days of standard and specific training every year. The training ranges from basic first aid and defensive driving to organizational communications and understanding complicated psychiatric diagnoses in children.…
...the successes and accolades are because we know how to "personalize" education. In her words, "not just individualize, but personalize." Marcia believes deeply in showing respect for each child. She talks about children by name. She knows their strengths. She knows their challenges. She is a strong proponent of trauma-sensitive education. She and her team, in all ways, are child-centered. Because of that, at Dakota Memorial School, the on-campus school of Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch, "we help at-risk children and their families succeed in the name of Christ."…
One thing newer staff have trouble adjusting to at Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch is the number of nicknames and replacement names the kids ask us to use.…
“I never thought I’d really be able to tell the stories that are in my imagination.” That was the excitedly delivered message from one of our high school art students as he presented his work to a group of Ranch employees.…
Many of the children who come to Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch have not lived with both their biological parents, or either of them, for many years. The children have been in foster care, with relatives, in an adoptive home, or with a single parent. They have been removed from the situation and/or people that caused them trauma. The behaviors and mental illness created by the trauma are now left for the child and their caregivers to navigate.…
Sometimes, as we go through our somewhat sanitized lives, we forget what Jesus went through to get to that remarkable day of Resurrection! We want to jump to the good part… where the good guy, Jesus, wins. We want to celebrate that… with bunnies and chocolates and big meals. But, that undermines the whole Easter story, which, as Olmstead said, truly begins with a baby’s birth in a muck-filled barn.…
I firmly believe that Christ is at the center of all healing that happens at Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch. I am also a firm believer that good science is one of God’s gifts to us. At the Ranch, Faith and Science work hand in hand to meet the needs of the hurting children.…