At first glance the Youth Villages Inner Harbour campus looks like a summer camp. It has all the hallmarks — roaming teens and children, lakefront views, sprawling cabins — there’s even a horse stable. 

But there’s something more to Inner Harbour. The campus is actually an evidence-backed residential treatment center and mental health facility for young people with serious emotional and behavioral problems. 

The idyllic facility tucked into a forest takes on some of the nation’s most challenged teens. And it’s about to get much bigger. 

Inner Harbour is run by national nonprofit Youth Villages, and the nonprofit leaders describe the 1,200-acre campus as a “therapeutic healing community.”

“It looks like a summer camp, but it’s not a summer camp, because our babies do some very tough work here,” Executive Director Tanya Anderson said.

The young people at Inner Harbour have already “escalated” from other services, like the ones Youth Villages often provides: mental and behavioral support, family preservation, foster care assistance and more.

Intervention didn’t succeed. So they come to Inner Harbour. For five to six months, young people from age 6 to 17 receive round-the-clock attention, attend classes, engage with nature and receive therapeutic care.

“While the kids have very tough behaviors, it doesn’t mean that you can’t create an environment that has natural lighting, that has a homey feel to it,” Anderson explained.

That wasn’t always the case. Inner Harbour began in the 1960s as an outdoor wilderness program — a highly controversial model to “correct” behavior, riddled with abuse allegations — and later switched to a “hospital” model.

Today, the nonprofit leaders emphasize Inner Harbour is neither a hospital or a wilderness program. It’s a community, despite “antiquated perceptions” of youth mental health care.

“When [people] see kids outside playing, they’re surprised by that,” Anderson said. “They think these kids are just locked in a building and they’re overly medicated.”

Inner Harbour’s techniques are updated for the modern era, but some of the facilities haven’t caught up. Classrooms are squeezed into any empty room possible, and several rooms on campus don’t even have windows.

And the need is growing. Inner Harbour had 128 beds, but would receive hundreds of referrals each year. The outdated, cramped buildings couldn’t serve a growing and changing need.

So Youth Villages birthed an ambitious plan: the biggest project in the organization’s history. In 2023, the Inner Harbour campus launched its $70 million “Elevate Campaign.”

It’s a big move for an organization heavily funded by Medicaid. Typically, Medicaid reimburses residential treatment facilities via a “per diem” for each individual under 21. The rates vary by state. Georgia historically ranked near the bottom, but recent moves have raised its daily standard to about $649 – firmly in the middle tier.

Philanthropy typically paid for other things, like capital needs. But the organization hadn’t run a major campaign since 2004, and never one this large.

The Elevate Campaign would fundraise to add over 100,000 square feet of new therapeutic and educational space, increase capacity from 128 to 172 beds, add a state-of-the-art 32,000 square foot school building, create a wellness recreation center and redo the administration buildings.

And it would happen without the campus closing down. “We laid out this long, three-phrased approach that allowed us to continue to serve the same number of kids, and just increase our census as we go along,” Youth Villages Director of Development Matt Girard said.

It also gave the organization a “long runway” for fundraising. The national organization kicked off fundraising by giving the Georgia facility $35 million, half of the entire campaign goal. Then other organizations chipped in.

Atlanta’s own Joseph B. Whitehead Foundation gave Youth Villages $7 million for the expansion. Steven Tyler, a longtime partner with Youth Villages, raised $4.1 million more; the funds would build his signature “Janie’s Houses,” all-girl cottages on the campus.

Inner Harbour fully funded the first phase, a new administration building and “cottage” for teenage residents. The 17,300 square foot administration building would have sprawling windows, new offices, a breakroom, meeting rooms and staff training facilities.

The new cottage would house up to 16 young people, and according to a mandate from Youth Villages national CEO Pat Lawler, each would have a lake view.

Design firm Post Loyal led the project. Partner Alan Post said he was connected to the organization through a family friend years ago. “Once you come out and meet the people, you’re totally hooked, because the people here are incredible,” he said.

“There’s just a passion there to help these kids,” Post added.

He followed a list of instructions from the CEO: Make the buildings all about nature, glass, and natural light. Have everything look out at the lake. “I want a new architectural vocabulary to express what we do,” was the directive.

So Post designed it. Then Inner Harbour built it. It is a secure building that is mostly glass. According to Post, it keeps kids safe while still being welcoming. “This is one of a kind,” he said.

It proved the concept of an ambitious campaign, and it moved the organization to phase two: education. So far, Youth Villages has raised about 90 percent of the necessary phase funds.

Phase two included four more “cottages,” each with a lake view. It also included the “Inner Harbour Learning Academy,” a dedicated 32,000-square-foot school campus overlooking the lake.

“It’s like something you would see at a private school,” Girard said. The education building would have included 18 classrooms, a media center, a STEM lab and space for occupational therapists. Per county rules, there would be one teacher for every ten students.

The building would bring together scattered classrooms to create a “regular school” feeling, which helps the transition out of Inner Harbour and back to regular life go a little easier.

So far, Inner Harbour has opened three more cottages under phase two. Once the education building is done, the organization will move to phase three: a 19,500-square-foot wellness center, a renovated campus cafeteria called “The Lodge” and a family visitation pavilion.

The wellness center is a star of the redevelopment. Currently, the residents have access to the lake, walking paths and an outdoor basketball court. The planned center will include a yoga center, drumming room, indoor basketball court, swimming pool, nursing station and space for onsite optometrist visits.

Youth Villages predicts the Learning Academy will be ready to accept students for the 2027-2028 school year, and anticipates phase three will be finished by the end of 2029.

It’s a major project, and the staff and leadership say they’re excited. But what about the kids?

“With the school building, we took an opportunity to meet with kids from different programs to show them renderings, and they were, I think, overwhelmed by the fact that this is a design for them that we feel like they are absolutely deserving of,” Anderson explained.

Youth Villages leadership said they have met with residents throughout the design process. It’s complicated because each resident is only there for a few months. It’s not long enough to see the results, but it is long enough to know what future residents may need.

“We interviewed kids at the start to get feedback, and then along the way, as there are new buildings and we get ready to design them,” Anderson said.

15-year-old Isabella Bolding from Tennessee is one of Inner Harbour’s current residents. She lives in one of the newer cottages, an all-girls Janie’s House. Bolding describes the campus as scenic, outdoorsy and with a pretty view of the lake.

“It’s kind of rustic in a good way,” she said. “Very rustic and charming.”

Bolding said when she arrived at Inner Harbour, she was surprised to see how nature-oriented and activity-packed the campus was. She spoke to SaportaReport on Oct. 28 and laid out a bit of her schedule: A glow party one night, then a fall festival. The next day, trunk or treat. Then, a Halloween party.

Between it all, she takes classes, does recreational therapy, gardens, drums, has quiet time and does real-world skill-building like mock interviews and job application workshops. It has helped her prepare for a future dream: opening a fusion restaurant in Long Beach, CA.

“We just have a very consistent schedule, which is good,” Bolding said. “It’s helpful especially for me because I know that I need that consistency. I know I need that structure in order to thrive.”

Bolding said she was informed about the project and kept in the loop on construction updates — the construction is happening around her daily life, after all. But she was less focused on the facility, and more on the people at Youth Villages. “We’re very community focused,” she said.

“Focus on how they’re helping the youth,” Bolding charged a future audience.  “Not just the looks of the cottages, not just the brand new of it. How they are really changing lives, and how us youth do play a big part in this.”

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