‘The Irish Government and childcare system is less strict regarding childcare outcomes’

Dr Dan Daly, the executive vice president for youth care at Boys Town, Nebraska, says he has a connection with the Irish children who pass through as “I’m Irish”. “I know the Irish system,” he continues, “we have done some training [of personnel] in Ireland.”

BOYS TOWN, USA

Boys Town is a state-of-the art facility in the state of Omaha, founded more than 100 years ago by Fr Eddie Flanagan, a priest from Co Roscommon.

Of the Irish contingent that has stayed in the facility over the years Dr Daly says: “I would consider 90% of them to be a huge success — how they did here and how they have done when they came back to Ireland.”

He has also noted some differences between the Irish children and the others at Boys Town, and some similarities.

“The Irish kids come to us a little better educated at the same grade level than the US kids,” he says. “They do not differ at all regarding their behaviours — their relationships with adults, issues with authority, [being] involved with the law. Obviously there are cultural differences,” he continues. “Ireland also tends to be a little more liberal in their approach. What I mean by that is the Irish Government and childcare system is less strict regarding childcare outcomes with their children.”

He doesn’t necessarily agree with this approach, citing an example of a boy in Ireland who had assaulted another child and who was still able to avail of services.

“In the States he would have been pulled out earlier,” he says, referring to the “slack” being afforded to children when he says a firmer approach is needed. It leads him to the main cultural difference he sees between the two systems: just because a young person may require psychiatric treatment does not mean they are too ill to address their behaviour. In other words, it shouldn’t be a get-out clause that sanctions bad behaviour. “We do not treat them as ill, but as having a behavioural problem and needing to learn new skills and new discipline.

“I think often the approach is a psychological/psychiatric one versus a practical approach,” he says. “If they are treated like they are ill it diminishes personal accountability and family accountability.”

All this leads to the issue of the military training provided at Boys Town. Dr Daly is quick to point out that the facility is not focused on producing platoons of recruits for the US armed forces, yet remarkably, in years past, approximately 30% of Boys Town children entered the armed forces.

But, he says, since the downsizing in military personnel due to the pulling back from Iraq and Afghanistan, this figure is now somewhere between 3% and 5%. An Irish child would not be able to enter the US armed forces as they are not American citizens. Those born in the US can avail of the GI Bill which can help pay for education after the age of 18.

Instead, he makes the case for the Junior ROTC (Reserve Officers Training Corps) courses as another facet of personal development. The male drill teams can march the rifles, but the girls march without them; it’s a case of berets and uniforms and a sense of discipline.

“It’s practically acrobatics,” Dr Daly says, adding that the programme allows Boys Town children to compete with other schools, the same way they might compete in American football or baseball. “It is on many of our public schools,” he says.

“America is different to Europe on this, I realise that.”

He says military hardware is seldom displayed, and he says the uniform worn by participants is simply part of the holistic approach that Boys Town takes. “We ask kids to trade gang colours for school colours,” he says, whether it’s ROTC or basketball.

He also queries whether there’s an overemphasis on the individual in the Irish system or an under-emphasis on a sense of “allegiance” to your community and family.

The Boys Town method is to help you along your ‘steps’ towards building relationships and developing life skills.

Religion is another plank of the Boys Town philosophy — church attendance is optional but desirable. “We do pray before meals, we believe you should go to church on Sunday, eat breakfast as a group,” he says. Normal family life is key, so domestic chores like helping to mow the lawn or cleaning the front yard is expected. Even if you’re on medication, the Boys Town philosophy is one of promoting respect, but many of the entrants to the facility will first spend six or seven months in the Boys Town Intensive Residential Treatment Centre, a psychiatric setting, a locked facility until they get to “the point where they can benefit from the family environment”.

“We do not accept every child,” he says of the referrals Boys Town receives. Children with criminal records are less likely to be taken in but are not automatically excluded from consideration. Those that do come tend to turn their lives around, he contends. “The biggest challenge we have is their parents are 6,000 miles away,” he says.