The Need

There is currently a critical need in our community for emergency placement and respite care for:

  1. Children who must be removed from their homes because of mental or physical abuse situations.
  2. Children who need a therapy-related ‘time-out’ from their home environment.
  3. Children of single parents who need a safe place to stay while the parent is in a treatment/medical facility or incarcerated and no other family member is available to care for them.
  4. Runaways who would be placed temporarily with us by the police until a guardian can be found.
  5. Pregnant teenage girls under the age of 18.

The people at Pearl house Family Services have seen these problems first hand. Currently existing public and private facilities are inadequate in meeting the needs of children who are homeless, are runaways, or have moderate to severe emotional problems. While many of these children come from low-income families, this need for respite and safety can affect children from all social levels. Without appropriate shelter and support, the sad result is often continued emotional or mental abuse that in most cases is technically difficult to report, since these types of problems are often outside the scope of laws that exist to protect from physical but not emotional harm.

Pearl House will be built in Ammon - in Bonneville County, which is located in Idaho Health and Welfare District VII. In 1999, Idaho Health and Welfare (H&W) performed a state-wide needs assessment to determine how many beds would be required to provide for children who need therapeutic foster care, therapeutic group foster care, or treatment in a residential treatment facility. Today our population has grown, as has the need in Eastern Idaho.

Projected vs. Actual Beds Available for Child and Adolescent Treatment
Care Type Projected Number Identified by 1999 Needs Assessment for future use in Region VII. Actual Number Identified by H&W FACS 8/2005 Deficit
Therapeutic Foster Homes 109 9 Deficit of 100 Therapeutic Homes
Therapeutic Group Foster Care 85 12* Deficit of 73 beds
Residential Treatment Center 49 12* Deficit of 37 beds

*Pearl House will fill the role of both Therapeutic Group Foster Care and a Residential Treatment Center.  The 12 beds currently identified as therapeutic group foster care and 12 beds for residential treatment center are duplicate numbers; there is only one 12-bed facility now operating in District VII. 

The 1999 H&W needs assessment projected a need for 85 beds for Therapeutic Group Foster Care and 49 beds for Residential Treatment Center Capacity - that is a need for 134 beds, just in Region VII.