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6. Can he earn any money? A young man can earn from $25/week up to $125/week depending on his overall score on his Passport to Manhood evaluation. He must earn an 85% or above on his Passport to earn money for that week. If he breaks the rules of the program, he may have part or all of his banked income taken away to make restitution for his actions. The money he can earn will be in the form of a weekly stipend that is “banked” for him until he is ready to leave the program. Some of his “banked” money can be used for outings such as going to a movie, eating at a restaurant, or going skiing.
7. What are they doing each day? See the BTMA weekly schedule
8. Will they ever be mixed with the younger boys (MTCYR boys)? No, never unsupervised. At times they may play basketball or other sports together, but this is always in the presence and under the supervision of 2 or more adult staff members. The workday and all other activities are separate from the younger boys program (this includes housing, meals, etc.) At times ranch activities such as branding, cattle drives, may require that the younger boys work alongside the young men, but again this is a adult staff heavily supervised activity that will have 4 or more staff members present and participating at all times. The young adult men are never under any circumstances left alone with the younger boys.
9. Will the young men be supervised? They will be under the guidance and direction of an adult staff member, 24/7. They may have moments during work that they are left to work on assigned project, while the staff member gathers materials etc. but they are never just left to themselves for long periods of time.
10. Where will he be staying? Rustic frontier cabin style facilities.
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What is the length of the average stay? We have a required minimum 90 days, we have found that 6-12 months stay is much more affective and gives longer lasting behavioral changes. It was demonstrated in recent national research that long-term treatment programs were more effective in achieving the goal of permanent recovery from addictive behaviors or other negative self defeating habits.
12. Can we make him stay? We cannot force anything on any of our students, but we are very effective in encouraging them to stay and work through our program for their own personal benefit.
Our very remote location discourages running away, thus the surrounding environment creates a natural boundary that few have tried to go beyond.
13. What do you do if a young man comes to BTMA and then is mad and unhappy and wants to leave? We work with him intensively through counseling, dialogue and understanding his feelings. This in turn helps him to understand and desire for himself the opportunity being offered to him for a real change in his life.
14. How do we get him to come if they don’t want to? That is an issue that needs to be worked through by the parents. We encourage parents to make it very clear that they will no longer house, feed or support the young man in any way (including taking away his cell phone, car and college etc. if paid for by the parents) unless he goes through the program and turns his life around. This ‘tough love” approach is usually very effective in convincing the young man to get the help he needs.
15. What should he bring with him? Regular tee shirts (white with short sleeves not sleeveless with no print or anything on them) and white underwear that are briefs (not boxer-shorts), gym shorts, and tennis or gym shoes, swim trunks (not brief type) hooded sweat shirt, winter work coat, hat and gloves. If the young man has sturdy work-boots he can bring those as well. All other clothing will be issued once he arrives here. Please let us know before your son arrives what his shoe, pants, and shirt size is.
15. Are cell phones or iPods allowed? Cell phones, iPods, laptops or any type of portable media devises are not allowed. This is important to let your son know that there will be no electronic media devices allowed at BTMA. If they are brought with them, they will be removed from the young man’s possession and locked away until he finishes the program, they will then be returned at the time of discharge.
16. My sons smokes is there smoking allowed at BTMA? We do not allow any tobacco use at BTMA. Tobacco use is considered a gateway addiction and we find we are more affective at helping young men overcome addictions if we address all of them at the very beginning of treatment. If your son smokes a pack or more of cigarettes a day he will be provided nicotine patches to step him down from his cravings for 4 weeks. After that he should be over his withdrawals from the nicotine.
17. Will my son attend Church services? Yes all the young men at BTMA attend the weekly Catholic Mass at Our Lady Of The Valley Parish, a few miles from the ranch. We all attend as a family community. If your son is not Catholic he will still attend mass so as to grow spiritually from the reading of scripture and the words of encouragement from the priest.
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