Serving Youth and Families Since 1903

Since its founding in 1903, Oesterlen’s single objective has been to serve children and their loved ones. We are a mental health treatment and social services agency serving youth and families. Our full range of services includes residential mental health treatment, foster care, outpatient counseling, in-home programs, and in-school programs.

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Our Programs

Residential Intensive Therapy
Severely emotionally troubled youth, ages 12-18, receiving intensive mental health therapy and living in 10-bedroom cottages on the Oesterlen campus, for stays of 6 to 12 months. Learn more »
Treatment Foster Care
Youth, ages birth to 18, occasionally older, needing out of home placement, and typically presenting with troubling behaviors requiring some level of therapeutic intervention. Learn more »
Community Counseling Center
Outpatient counseling center for youth and families, offering individual, group, and family behavioral health counseling, in multiple programs, on the Oesterlen campus and on-site in area schools. Learn more »
Intensive Home-Based Therapy
Home-based services providing intensive intervention into unacceptable behaviors of youth and families, which are necessary to prevent the possible imminent decision to remove a child from the home for out-of-home placement. Learn more »
Transitional Independent Living
Serves 17 and 18 year old youth transitioning from foster care or other placement programs to living independently as young adults. Learn more »
Wraparound Services
A strength-based model of in-home intervention services, planned by family members and case coordinators, to preserve an intact family when moderate issues of neglect or abuse have been discovered, which likely could result in removing the child from the home, if not resolved. Learn more »
Respite and Resource Center
A collaborative program operated by multiple agencies in the three counties to provide an emergency short-term drop off center, for stays up to two weeks, for youth and young adults where a crisis exists in the home, and temporary respite is necessary to evaluate the situation and to determine potentially more permanent solutions for stability in the home. Learn more »

Mission Statement

On behalf of the church, in witness to Christ, this agency’s mission is to serve children in need from infancy through transition into adulthood and to promote their mental, social, physical, and spiritual well being. To carry out this mission, Oesterlen is dedicated to promoting healthy families and utilizing the highest possible standards within the professional fields of our service. The provision of services by this agency shall be consistent with its mission, and all person shall have equal access to such services and to employment by the agency in accord with all applicable affirmative action and equal opportunity policies.

Our Legacy and Heritage

Oesterlen began as an orphanage in 1903. Since the mid-1950s, we have been a mental health treatment center for emotionally, behaviorally, and psychologically troubled children and youth.

Today, we offer a full range of services, including residential and outclient community services programs.

More about Oesterlen and its history »