HOYLETON, Ill. – Hoyleton Youth and Family Services joined Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker Thursday to break ground on a construction project that will provide a new model of care for vulnerable youth.
The new residential campus will allow vulnerable youth between the ages of 9 and 18 to have a place to grow, learn, and heal in a therapeutic environment.
The future residents are both developmentally and intellectually delayed and have experienced trauma.
Their new home will be 157 East Elm Street in Hoyleton, Illinois.
“These won’t just be beds, though, people will talk about it that way. It’s more than that; we’re building homes specially designed to support the developmental and intellectual needs of children in residential care,” Pritzker said.
The project will allow for the creation of seven brand new residential cottages, increasing the residential capacity from 36 to 42 youth.
“What if we re-invented the way we care about children? And Chris and the board told me, ‘Well, we’ll break ground and keep growing.’ And I said, ‘Deal.’ And four years later, we’re here,” said Marc Smith, director of the Department of Children & Family Services.
With expert trauma-informed care, disadvantaged foster youth would be able to shorten their time in the system, so they could be reunited with family, live in a traditional foster home with foster parents, or get necessary life skills, so they can live independently when they age out of the foster care system.
“Joint efforts and partnerships brought us here today. Residential staff, Hoyleton administration, and DCFS joined in a planning process to envision and shape the construction of a new campus,” said Monte Mister, director of Therapeutic Residential Care.
Each resident will have a private bedroom, semi-private bathroom, sound and sensory-appropriate space, art spaces, and planned outdoor areas.
Each home will have solar panels, electric vehicles, and two charging stations with the capacity for a total of up to six.
The housing portion of the project is scheduled to be completed in January 2024.
The facility will cost $16 million and is being funded by state and federal grants as well as private and corporate donors.