Bowdon’s residential treatment facility for KidsPeace National Centers of Georgia has been recognized by the Georgia Council for Administrators of Special Education for the work KidsPeace has done with its students.

KidsPeace specializes in educating and rehabilitating children who have experienced crises, many times domestic traumas.

“As a result, when you have a lot of trauma and chaos going on in your family, it’s very difficult for them to concentrate in school, and for some it’s difficult to even go to school because their parents have them doing other things,” said Scott Merritt, executive director of the Bowdon campus. “The chaos that they were dealing with in their personal life was preventing them from achieving academically, but at the same time, we do have kids with emotional problems and learning disabilities.”

Merritt said that some of the children and adolescents who enter KidsPeace are far behind the academic grade levels their peers have attained, so KidsPeace teachers often work to close the gap between age and grade level. According to Merritt, KidsPeace has taught children as old as 14 how to read.

KidsPeace admits children ages 12 to 17 who have been recommended to the organization by the Division of Family and Children Services or the Department of Juvenile Justice. KidsPeace was started 125 years ago as an orphanage. The Bowdon facility, one of several across the nation, was opened in 2004. Most of the students housed on the Bowdon campus are Georgia residents, and many are from the local area.

Merritt said that KidsPeace residents are given individualized treatment plans that address their specific needs. The students are released once the goals of their treatment plans have been reached.

“I think everybody has a different definition of rehabilitation, but the kids are definitely able to process and deal with the trauma that they have experienced,” he said. “They’ve been able to learn that there are adults who actually care about them, adults that they can trust. They learn coping skills, social skills that no one has really ever taught them before. They learn behavior management techniques. They just basically see a new way of living and a better way of living.”

The average length of stay for KidsPeace residents is 10 months, Merritt said, and they usually go into foster homes, group homes, independent living homes or to family members upon their release. He said that although parental rights are terminated before the children enter the residential facility, some parents who follow treatment plans set by DFCS and KidsPeace are reunited with their children.

“A lot of the parents grew up in the same situation and they were never taught how to be parents, and they just continue the cycle,” he said.

Many former KidsPeace students go on to succeed in regular schools and on required tests, Merritt said. Some even go on to four-year universities.

“These are kids who were not able to make it in a regular school before they came to us,” he said.

Merritt said that KidsPeace has been recognized for education because its small class sizes allow for more individualized instruction from teachers. He also believes that it is easier for students to learn while surrounded by other students who have experienced similar traumas in their lives.

“I think that increases their comfort level,” he said. “There’s not as much embarrassment and shame as they felt in a regular school.”