Main Campus

The main campus contains the Gwaltney School, residential services for adolescent girls with a variety of needs, transitional independent living and independent living residences.  The setting is ideally suited to facilitate the development of true independent living in a “safe harbor” setting designed to instill success and understanding of “managing one’s own affairs” without the distractions that most low-cost housing areas in larger cities present to young women who are trying to “make it on their own.” 

The residential services also offer a program for pregnant girls as well as the opportunity for girls to maintain their babies up to age 4 with them to ensure safe and successful mother-child bonding and to instill life-long parenting skills in the mother as well as strong support for the baby’s development throughout the major milestones of his/her early years. There is 24-hour staff supervision and experienced nursing staff are on duty seven days a week to assist both the mother and child in the most critical stage of a child’s development.   

The residential services offer a transitional group independent living cottage, which has at least one staff on duty 24 hours per day for up to 12 girls.  The girls are responsible for coordinating the schedule, preparing their meals, managing the housekeeping for personal and shared areas and sharing the resources and amenities available to them such as appliances, equipment and scheduling/transportation. This program utilizes the Daniel Institute Independent Living Curriculum together with other curricula and resources to enable each resident to develop a full range of competencies that will prepare her for living independently as an adult. Each girl takes a pre-test upon admission into the program and must score a minimum of 80% on a post-test prior to graduating from Phase I.

For girls who need additional assistance prior to stepping out into their home or a city-living community setting, we offer two small houses located on the property separate from the other main campus buildings for true independent living. Girls may share a house, which offers a full kitchen, a living room, backyard, bedrooms and bathrooms.  Each young lady has the opportunity to experience independent living without the distractions of city living as they learn how to manage everyday life issues. They will face challenges in dealing with maintenance problems, purchasing their own groceries, meal planning, scheduling transportation to work, paying for bills before pleasure items, managing their work schedule, sleep habits and developing healthy leisure activities as well as friendships outside of Jackson-Feild Homes.

We also serve girls who want to return to their family but may not be able to gain the skills and resources in their home community to prepare for their future adequately.  These girls will learn how to rely upon their own skills and resources as well as work with their family or support system to successfully transition back into the community. 

The program encourages home visits as appropriate to help the family unit to transition smoothly and to enable everyone to face the challenges gradually so that they may be managed carefully throughout the transition process. We also provide overnight accommodations to parents/family as needed to enable them to spend quality time for visiting their daughter on campus. The more contact they have while their daughter is in our program, the better prepared the family will be with the resident’s reintegration back into the family and community. 

Girls will have the opportunities to access services that are appropriate for their individual needs to include individual, group and family therapy, medication monitoring and psychiatric services through a consulting psychiatrist, substance abuse education and prevention, supportive counseling and community support groups, social skills, moral development skills, parenting skills, employment skills, anger management and leisure skills development. 

These services will be conducted through a variety of media to include: neurofeedback (biofeedback), therapy with licensed therapist, planned recreational groups, didactic groups, role plays, journal writing, community educational tours of museums, cultural events to include performing arts on campus and season tickets to cultural arts centers, churches, sports activities to include swimming, volleyball, soccer, softball, aerobics, and art activities to include pottery making, arts & crafts, bead-making, painting and drawing.   

The program will incorporate a variety of behavior management systems that are appropriate for the level of care for each service component. The behavior management system incorporates both a merit system and a disciplinary system in addition to our level progressions. Off-campus opportunities require demonstration of safe and cooperative behavior within the group setting. There are a variety of incentives that encourage the girls to learn and maintain self-discipline in their anger and aggression management.  

Safety is the first priority and violent, aggressive behavior will result in legal action if necessary. Our philosophy is that idle time is opportunity for misplaced energy and actions. Our goal is to help girls value the opportunities to learn and develop themselves far beyond their current belief system of their own capabilities.