Boys' Town

With a mission to touch hearts and stimulate minds, we have established a therapeutic programme where people and nature entwine. Through the means of the outdoors and adventure, the programmes seek to change the lives of children and youth, especially those experiencing unresolved conflict, damaged relationships and post-traumatic stress.
 
Whether it is scaling a natural rock wall or traversing water rapids, participants are made to reflect and learn hands-on to work around the environment they are in.

These programmes are run by our new Boys’ Town Adventure Centre (BTAC) and provides challenge courses, mountain expeditions, and outdoor sports certification for both existing beneficiaries and the public. The BTAC complements the years of experience Boys’ Town has conducting sports and adventure activities to develop our beneficiaries’ self-esteem and help them overcome mental barriers.
 
Since BTAC started in January 2016, it has conducted a numerous adventure programmes for our boys, local secondary schools, as well as customized programmes for at-risk youths associated with gangs. The centre has an adventure tower and bouldering room sponsored by a donor within the Boys’ Town campus.

In recent years, we have observed that the profile of at-risk youths appear to be more challenging with their presenting problems which are often psycho-social in nature. While there are existing interventions in the form of counseling, expressive art and other therapies, there appears to be a need for a different approach in intervention to manage their growing needs and challenges.
 
What was realized is that traditional counseling, expressive art and basic play therapy didn’t engage the whole range of youth at risk. Many of these youths were very reserved and guarded in a typical therapeutic session and therapists required more time to work with these youths as their resistance were greater. However, it was noticed that when exposed to intense physical activities/training sessions over a period of time, these youths became more responsive and their learning abilities soared.

It was with moments like these, that their approach to life took on a new angle and they started to see possibilities to accomplish things for themselves, often times extending towards their studies.

As such, in 2014, Boys’ Town commissioned its very own Adventure Therapy Programme team to complement its existing youth services and programmes. In 2016, Boys’ Town kicked start our very own Boys’ Town Adventure Centre (BTAC) which involved developing and conducting both indoor and outdoor programmes for groups of both residential and non-residential at-risk youth.

It is our belief that adventure based progammes and therapy can be the next wave of intervention for at-risk youth bringing them to a higher level of learning and effect lasting changes!