MINOT, ND (KXNET) — Over the past year, one treatment center has been building a new cottage to provide a new style of care to the kids that they serve.
The Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch held a dedication on Friday of Zurcher Cottage, a brand new residential treatment facility that leaders say will transform how the Ranch cares for some of its youngest and highest-needs kids.
The facility will be opening in the spring of 2026, and Joy Ryan, the President and CEO of the Ranch, said they designed this new facility specifically for the kids they are helping now.
“The environment is one that has, it’s a quiet soothing environment, the way the children live together are in smaller groups so it isn’t as large of number of kids at one time, they have their private spaces, they have rooms to really connect with family members or foster family members, and to really heal to have a chance to find out who they are and to become their best selves,” Ryan said.
This 15 thousand square-foot building contains 16 bedrooms across four different wings, and each wing provides things like a calming room, a media room, and a family room.
“The wings house fewer children makes a big difference because we’re able to change groups of children in the living environments to create less stress. If there are children who need more space and more quiet, we have the space to provide services for them,” Ryan added. “We also have two of what are called stabilization rooms, and sometimes children come in under such a point of chaos that they need time to kind of re-regulate and bring themselves into a place where they can be with other people and deal with the interactions of everything.”
Ranch leaders said every room, every hallway, was built with healing and safety in mind.
“We’ve used the latest technology and stuff that we know about being trauma informed so even from the acoustic tiles in the ceiling to the lights that we used to the paint colors that we chose and all the way down to the fixtures and even the heating and cooling system is all designed to be really sensory friendly and a really safe and good place for kids to heal,” Tim Gienger the Senior Director of Residential Partnerships said.
Ryan said this building was completely funded through the generosity of more than 240 donors, and she said it shows the concern of people who want to build a high-quality space for children.
“We hear all the time about the children’s mental health crisis but we really have not as a child welfare system created spaces for what we’ve learned and this is kind of a template for others going forward, it’s certainly going to inform what we do going forward but I really hope it inspires others who work with kids to really think through the environments they’re in and keep the children the priority.”
Leaders said Zurcher Cottage will provide care to boys and girls mostly between the ages of 10 and 14.