Beauty
The environment that surrounds us can help us feel calm…can help us feel valued. Assurance Home strives to create a beautiful, homelike atmosphere. We are situated on a park-like, 15-acre campus that offers many nice outdoor areas. We have a large, grassy field, basketball court, stables for horses and a high element ropes course. The main house is a turn of the century farm house, with wooden floors and thick adobe walls and is decorated with vintage furniture, beautiful artwork and stained-glass windows.
Kindness
Being treated with respect and dignity helps improve our self-image and self-esteem. The staff at Assurance Home are guided by a trauma informed philosophy that encourages young people to be the best they can be. Our home is full of all types of youth who come from diverse backgrounds and each has their own unique personality. Youth are cared for without judgement. We know that positive relationships with our children are necessary in order to encourage good behavior and progress toward life goals.
Hope
Many of our young people come to us with too few happy childhood memories. It is hard to feel hopeful about the future when so many bad things have happened in their young lives. Assurance Home strives to create new, happy memories by sponsoring fun, recreational activities on the weekends, regional trips to surrounding areas and a special, fun-filled vacation at the end of summer. Our young people are encouraged to pursue activities outside our program such as sports and school-related endeavors. Most of our young people work at part-time summer jobs in the community and some are able to hold down jobs during the school year. These opportunities help change a child’s view of the world and create new possibilities for their futures.
Awareness
Assurance Home believes in the concept that children should live in families. We also know that there are some young people who find living in families very challenging, perhaps because off the trauma they experienced when they lived with their own families. We also understand that even though they cannot live safely with their own families, they may still hold a deep attachment to their birth parents and have difficulty developing close relationships to other family units, and they may have attachment problems that become evident in parent/child-type relationships.
We have found that young people can find comfort in knowing that they are not the only ones who have difficult family environments. Forming bonds with other youth in similar circumstances can induce healing. Having other young people who share similar life circumstances but are thriving, can produce hope and encouragement. Having stability in their living situation often allows youth to concentrate more on the other important things going on in their lives.