Impact of Implementing the Boys Town Family Home Model on Organizational Climate in an Australian Residential Program

The ineffectiveness of an organization’s current intervention is the most common reason for them to seek a new evidence-based program. This paper outlines and evaluates the adoption and implementation of the Boys Town Family Home Program (BT-FHP; USA) by the Dunlea Centre (DC) in Engadine, NSW Australia. The primary focus of the evaluation examines the impact of implementing the BT-FHP on the organizational culture at DC. From 2015 until the end of 2024, youth at DC responded to an organizational climate questionnaire during time spent in their residential house. During this 10-year period, 852 questionnaires were collected. The overall impact of the implementation of the BT-FHP had a significant impact on the organizational climate at DC as evaluated by youth in the program. Pairwise comparisons for two climate measures across Implementation, Sustainment, and Accreditation periods were all significantly higher than the Baseline period. The implementation process used by DC was systematic, strongly supported by leadership, and sustained by continued training and assessment of model fidelity. The results supported the hypothesis that the new model would significantly increase youths’ evaluation of the program’s organizational climate.