Martha Randolph Carr

In A Place to Call Home, Martha Randolph Carr shatters the myths that surround what are now called residential educational facilities. She discovers that they are not facilities at all—they are homes to children and young men and women who grow up in safe and loving environments. Carr reveals that most residents have been and are “social” orphans—children of single parents who for economic or personal reasons cannot take care of them.
In this first study of orphanages in over sixty years, Carr talks with the young residents, teachers, counselors, house parents, and administrators about how the schools—many of which have existed for well over a century—have adapted to modern needs. She relates their sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, and always compelling stories.
Former residents from each of the featured homes tell their amazing stories of the journey from troubled youth to successful adult. And they are not alone. Carr reports that those who live in residential educational facilities are more likely to graduate from high school and attend college than children in foster homes-- and at less cost to the public.
Carr visits five residential educational facilities from the heart of urban America to the plains of Texas. Along the way, she learns parenting tips that she shares with readers. As she learns about the families that are made in residential educational facilities, Carr relates the moving story of her relationship with her son, Louie. She discovers that what pulled them apart could become the road map to mending their troubled relationship and allow them to embrace the constant changes required to feel fulfilled and live without regret.
Part study of modern-day orphanages and part memoir, Carr shows us an effective solution for America’s troubled families. With nearly 600,000 children in foster care in need of stable and loving homes, residential education facilities are needed now more than ever. The number of facilities is growing: Carr writes about a unique facility in San Diego that was part of a successful effort to reduce the youth crime rate, about a new public charter school in Washington, DC, that has begun to board students, and about the much publicized new facility for girls in South Africa sponsored and funded by Oprah Winfrey.
A Place to Call Home includes parenting tips from each of the five homes. It also includes information on how to find a residential educational facility near you and information on how former residents can reconnect to their former fellow residents.
Join Martha Randolph Carr on her journey through America’s hidden and successful residential educational facilities and on her journey to a new relationship with her son.

Martha Randolph Carr is founder of the Shared Abundance Foundation that provides college scholarships to residents of residential education facilities and the Family Tree Project that uses the web to reconnect former residents. She is a frequent contributor to the Washington Post and a columnist for ClubMom.com and IdealLives.com. She is also author of the novels Wired and The Sitting Sisters.