Secret Harbor School

Youth Treatment Center a 52-year-old Success Story

by Michael Barrett

The boat ride from Anacortes to Cypress Island is only 20 minutes long. For troubled male adolescents sent to the island’s secluded Secret Harbor School, the final trip back to society may take from three months to three years, depending on how well they respond to treatment.

Secret Harbor is a private, not-for-profit social-service agency serving special-needs children and youth through residential treatment and foster-care programs north of Everett. The residential center — comprising dormitories, dining hall, classroom facility, outdoor recreation area, staff quarters, small farm, boat landing and woodlands — makes up 213 acres of the 6,000-acre, seahorse-shaped island, the last and largest undeveloped isle of the San Juan archipelago.

The children who go there — 34 now, but expanding to 39 soon — have complex needs requiring intensive, one-on-one treatment. Most have severe behavioral, developmental, learning, social or emotional problems, and some struggle with chemical dependency, according to the agency.

“The island setting is such a challenge,” says executive director Brian Carroll. “We generate our own electricity, provide our own water and operate boats. It probably costs us 20 percent more than it would if we were in downtown Anacortes. It’s a huge expense.”

The corporation is slowly making changes through donations, grants and other funds raised through capital campaigns, but not through federal or state funding sources, Carroll says. For example, a $75,000 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and technical assistance of Accu-Comm, Inc. is helping Secret Harbor build a “communications bridge” from Anacortes to the island using microwave towers. When completed, the isolated school will have Internet access, a virtual library, video conferencing and distance learning capability.

 

Began as summer camp

Secret Harbor started in the ’40s as a summer camp for youth and became a small, year-round therapeutic farming center for boys in 1949. Over the years, most of the clients came from wealthy, out-of-state families, but that changed dramatically in recent years when students from financially challenged families were referred there by the state Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS). Today, 94 percent of them come from low-income homes in Skagit, Snohomish, King and pierce counties.

Secret Harbor School itself was established as a nonprofit organization in 1978 and took its present name in 1983. It added its Foster Care Resources division in 1998, and more than three years later, Foster Care serves 35 children, a number that is expected to grow to 50 or 60 by the end of this year.

“Up to the 1960s, it was a mix of private and public money that funded us. That changed in 1998. It was critical for us to come up with a way to figure out how to service more kids and families,” Carroll states.

“(Secret Harbor has) changed from being basically a center for 14- to 18-year-old, end-of-the-road adolescent males,” he continues. “We continue to serve adolescent males at our Cypress Island center; however, we now have the ability to provide services for younger boys and girls in our Foster Care programs. The agency can accept children at eight levels of treatment.”

The budget at the time was $1.8 million, Carroll says. Three years later, that budget has more than doubled to $4.1 million. “This year’s will be about the same, perhaps with 5- to 10-percent growth,” he adds.

“We’re a major employer, with 78 full-time staff, 29 foster homes across north Snohomish and Skagit counties, and we try to spend the money at home,” Carroll notes. He breaks down the full-time employment as 15 in foster care, 10 in administration and the remainder in counseling and support.

“The majority is paid by the agencies that place kids with us,” Carroll explains. “Right now, 32 of 34 residents (at Secret Harbor School) are placed by DSHS,” as are all of those in foster care.

Children abide by a strict regimen at the school, from sleeping schedules and classroom study to reward levels that may eventually lead them back to the mainland. Educational services are provided by law through the Anacortes School District, including about $150,000 in special-education money.

“We’re about 99 percent fee-for-service,” Carroll says. “We actually operate a very lean business. The grants we get — from foundations, none from federal or state sources — are mostly for special projects and programs.”

Recently, Secret Harbor received official recognition by the Council on Accreditation for Children and Family Services, stating that it has met the highest national standards and is delivering the best-quality services to the community it serves.

 

Some earn privileges

Youths who transition through various stages of treatment are given the opportunity to earn privileges and rewards and spending money by way of work programs.

The school’s facilities manager, Gary Warman, tells visitors how residents can earn privileges for their discipline and good behavior. Reaching the higher two levels — excelling, cleaning their rooms and helping out — may allow them to purchase candy and other special items at a boys’ store he and other staff have set up below the 30-year-old, cinder-block dormitories.

“The dorms are like a ship,” Warman observes. “They’ve been through heck over the years. The first thing they (angry clients) do is strike out at property.”

Until only a few years ago, locks on doors weren’t required. Now for security and protection staff can gain entry to dorm rooms and indeed are required to “see skin” on a sleeping boys at every 15-minute check. Residents have been known to escape into the thick woods for a time and, in one rare case, a local boater encountered a distraught youth with a weapon and offered to take him to Anacortes to diffuse a potentially dangerous situation.

Most residents eventually straighten up, are released with transition support and become upstanding citizens. Some have written letters of thanks to Carroll and staff members, while others have returned for a visit during special events.

Says one former student in a letter:

“I was at Secret Harbor School for a year and a half and I just want to say thanks. It helped me a lot.”

For more information about Secret Harbor School and how to contribute to its capital campaign, call the Anacortes main office at 293-5151.