Ranch Ehrlo celebrates 50th anniversary

Ranch Ehrlo started in 1966 as a single house providing services to six troubled boys.

Now, 50 years later, the organization is in locations across the Saskatchewan serving hundreds of clients of all ages.

In Regina, they are involved in programs around city, from yoga classes to treatment programs for families in distress.

Intensive treatment for young people is still very much needed today.- Andrea Brittin

This week, Ranch Ehrlo is celebrating its anniversary and shining a light on the things they do.

"We've since delved off into areas of prevention and other supports to the community," Andrea Brittin, the CEO of Ranch Ehrlo, said Thursday, talking about the changes from 50 years ago.

The focus on youth remains strong.

"That intensive treatment for young people is still very much needed today," she said.

Brittin explained that Ranch Ehrlo has three different family treatment programs. Some of the programs support measures to avoid children having to leave a family and enter the foster care system. Other programs provide support to ease the return of a child in foster care to their family.

"We work very closely with the Ministry of Social Services," she said.

Support for families

Therapists and program staff help families in their homes, Brittin explained, to gain skills for things like budgeting or grocery shopping. They also help out with parenting skills and teach appropriate discipline methods.

"All those real kind of basic things that people need to safely parent their children," she said.

Brittin said the society now has 800 people on staff with group homes in Prince Albert and just outside Prince Albert as well as homes in Regina and on the outskirts of Saskatoon.

"We have a really big camping program," Brittin said. It runs during the summer months and youth get to places all around Saskatchewan.

"Many of the young people who come to us have experienced so much trauma in their lives and they show so much resilience in overcoming that when they're given a little bit of help," Brittin said.

She said Ranch Ehrlo's treatment programs seek to address the many needs facing young people in distress.

"We really look at their psychological needs [as well as] their social, their cultural [and] their spiritual aspects," she said. "And we have to look at all those domains because they're all so important in the overall functioning of an individual."

Brittin said Ranch Ehrlo offers a holistic, or comprehensive, approach to getting well.