The Lost Boys from Longwood (2019 by JC Pater is a collection of biographical excerpts about the boys who lived in a residential facility for boys in the Chicago area.

According to JC Pater, who was a journalist & columnist, before undertaking a Masters & working as an educator for boys living in state care. Those boys became the inspiration for her book.

Pater makes the point that often boys are held at the facility even though they could have lived with relatives because the priority of Longwood is “to have all of their beds filled”.

She writes:

“It is a matter of survival. Empty beds mean loss of revenue, which is a private agency’s lifeline” (p. 5).

In the example of one boy, the adults running the facility would therefore write reports that said the child was “psychologically damaged, in need of treatment, and therefore not ready to relocate back to his home state.”

The longer the boy stayed at Longwood, the more he needed treatment.