Gillis Center

Campus based trauma treatment for children - since taking in our first civil war orphans in 1870, Kansas city's most desperate children have been in our care for every single minute of the last 146 years. Today, we serve approximately 130 youth in our residential treatment program. The average child has experienced extreme trauma and has been through 3.5 disrupted foster placements or adoptions. The focus of treatment is to make emotional progress in ways that will help them be successful in family life and find permanent, nurturing homes. When provided a structured environment with safety, boundaries, expert trauma treatment and compassion, Gillis residential boys can overcome the trauma in their pasts. The 10-bed Gillis emergency children's shelter specializes in cases of acute abuse or neglect and in preserving sibling groups. 98% of referring case workers report significant reductions in trauma symptoms in their Gillis shelter clients.

Community based programs - Gillis is dedicated to the idea that children belong in families. Our wide array of community-based services works in many different ways, but the goal of each is the same: help families stay together by working through challenges and opportunities to become stable, nurturing units. From financial and job education for families to juvenile offenders to parents who lost custody of their children but have turned their lives around, thousands of people spanning 8 metro counties are helped by our community-based programs each year. The in-home structure of our interventions eliminates the barriers of child-care and transportation created by office treatments and allows our family specialists to assess safety and address problems where they happen.

Gillis day treatment school - the Gillis day treatment school helps children and youth from more than 20 kc area school districts with therapies designed to help a child address his or her emotional problems without losing out on academic progress. With expert counseling and specialized education, Gillis school's day treatment program provides troubled children what their home school districts can't: a better chance for success.