Little Learners' Enrichment Center

I was a student here in 2011 and a staff in 2020. Northwoods and other PRTF save lives! Google me! I play pro football now and was on path to end up in jail when I went here at age 12. Please contact me if you doubt me, I’m easy to find! The thing with PRTF is that your kid has to participate in their programming. If they don’t then this isn’t the place to be forcing you, it’s not a fully locked down facility like that. Then, you have some families who don’t care in the horn so that doesn’t help either when the kid leaves doesn’t have support then everyone blames the PRTF but there’s a reason we all got sent their in the first place so reading these former youth complain when they’re fresh out shouldn’t impact you. I’m a grown adult 10+ years after successfully discharging from Northwoods living my independent life, married and happy and it is all because of Northwoods.

Northwoods has been a Godsend for our family! 2 of my grands were in their program and we're getting ready to send a third their way! Ther isn't anything bad to say about them. Everyone is so kind and welcoming.

I believe that I must share this with anyone who will listen. My personal experience happened in the late 1970s. For me, I was a guardian of the State of Minnesota.... Minnesota assigned me to what was called... Northwood Children's Home in Duluth,MN. For this part of MN, Thank you. This facility; at it's time in the late 1970s ... And going on into the 1980s... They had the right people in staff ... Personally, everything; I mean everything that this facility has done for me.. I don't have enough paper in front of me to write about... I was abused from... three until about seven... I was removed from my home and My family..... Northwood.... No, Northwood didn't abuse me..... 1972 - 1977. My step dad did. Back in it's day; Northwood'elped me to put myself together.... And we're taking what they knew 1978+ and even though I was rejected by my original family... I was adopted in 1980 by my new family. I understand that this is an old school recollection... Report...

They were awesome with my son and he learned so much with the hands on approach to learning. All his teachers have become good friends to him and he has been given so many helpful tips to manage his anger that has been noticed in and out of our home

My name is Tyler Ireland and I was here from December 2011 - April 2013 as a member of the Bear team. It was the worst experience of my life. A lot of it had to do with factors that were simply out of the staff's control. As a preteen with high functioning autism, I was an extremely picky eater back then; and I consistently had trouble eating food there. The food quality there was similar to a school cafeteria. Not great, but edible. Still, I would go hungry and a couple times I threw up in the cafeteria for everyone to see. I was initially brought in due to anger management issues stemming from Bi-Polar disorder, which I hadn't been diagnosed with at the time since I was only 12 years old. The whole staff tried their best to "fix" me, so to speak. They saw that I was a picky eater, so they tried to use positive reinforcement and negative punishment to encourage me to try new foods. That plan backfired in the worst way possible. Throughout the duration of my stay, I showed no signs of progress and my physical and mental health started to deteriorate. I ended up going hungry most days because I couldn't get myself to finish my meals no matter how hard I tried. This made it extraordinarily difficult for me to do even the simplest of tasks such as finishing my homework or doing daily chores. Let alone managing my anger, which is why I was there in the first place. The lack of progress I made frustrated my case manager Ashley Plourde, to the point where she eventually gave up and transferred my case to someone else. For added context, Ashley was one of the most experienced staff members on the Bear team behind Matt Zemler. So if she was unable to help me, then no one else would've been able to either at that point. I'm sure Northwoods was probably manageable for most kids and teens there. A lot of them only had the anger issues to worry about. Once they swallowed their pride and did as they were told, the pathway for them to leave was wide open. My situation was a bit different because I understood what I needed to do to leave, but I couldn't down food no matter how hard I tried. Northwoods was like Sunnyside Daycare from Toy Story 3. On the outside, it looks like a place where kids get to enjoy fun activities and everything is kumbaya. When in reality, I was stuck in what felt like a jail-like environment with no signs of ever being able to leave and see my family again. Fortunately, my family eventually realized that I wasn't getting better there, and fought against the county and the institution itself to get me out. In retrospect, residential treatment at Northwoods was so miserable that they succeeded in having me never want to be within a 25 mile radius of Duluth ever again.