Been here for 3 years, sure there will be times staff are harsh, but at the end of the day they treat us kids with respect, from 5k vacation trips, yacht rides, christmas, other things like football games, we have our own basketball league, its honestly good. Sure personal things and being away from home has an impact but on the outside its tbe best facility I could really ask for

I am currently at Holston and I can for sure say it's not fun, the kids get told 30 days but it's never 30 days, I've been here for going on 7 months now and it sucks. When I got there I was doing truma therapy and they told me to build a bond with a staff, so I did, but I had a bad cottage mentor and I didn't want to go home.. so I didn't try and I lasted that way for a while, but then my mentor got Changed to the staff that I have a good connection with, and I started doing amazing I went from B1p to R2 and not really any behavior issues but then out of nowhere they wanted to move me to a different cottage and I knew it would set me back bc I don't like my "home" getting moved and then the cottage crashed out bc I was leaving but the next day they said they were not moving me but then they fired the staff the one staff for no real reason then later find out that they tell staff "YOUTH ARE NOT YOUR FRIENDS SO DONT BOND, AND THAT US YOUTH ARE NOT TRUSTWORTHY AT ALL" and that dont seem like they care about who we are as actual people. But the school is great you can do 2 grades in one year of school also church is nice but mostly forced

My name is Shane and I am a current resident at Holston home for children and I am proud to say that I have been given the best opportunity and support for my upcoming life and Holston has been like a family to me though they have rules that are stupid and strict it is all for preparing me and others for the real world.thank you so much for getting me to this point.