Another Celebration of Success!

Brandon’s success story started when he came to the ranch almost two years ago. Brandon had been “running the school” as his mother Jennifer would say, when he was attending that is. He was hanging out with guys who were many years older than him and had gotten involved in drugs and other illegal behavior. Additionally he was failing at school and had fallen several grade levels behind in Math and English.

When Brandon came to the ranch a Judge had explained that either Brandon and his mother would need to find an intervention or the judge would assign him to one. Jennifer found Heritage Ranch and enrolled Brandon as an alternative to two years in Juvenile Detention. Not only would this allow Brandon to get the help he needed but it would provide mom the counseling and parent education she needed to support him.

When Brandon arrived at the ranch he was very angry and defiant and would often see the ranch staff as authorities to stand against. As we learned more about Brandon we saw that underneath the anger and disrespect there was deep trauma, trust issues, and hopelessness. Addressing this root cause, we worked with him on how to process through his emotions and not merely react to them. As we worked with Brandon, we sought to bring out the strengths we saw in him: his work ethic, leadership, and care for others.

We saw him begin to take pride in mowing the Ranch yard each week and helping around the office and the house. He showed significant progress in school overtime; going from D’s and F’s to A’s and B’s. He began to encourage the other residents to honor the staff and the rules and we would see his smile when he was able to just relax and have fun like a teenager. Most exciting however was seeing the trust and relationship grow between him and his mom, the Ranch staff, and the Lord.

Over the last two years we have seen a lot of growth and maturation from Brandon and we are proud to send him out to continue his journey. During his discharge meeting at the Ranch, he shared with staff that the biggest thing he learned at the Ranch was how to say No to things that are not good for him. What an invaluable lesson for him as he moves forward in life. Congratulations Brandon!