On June 12th of 2023, our beloved founder, Carol Burns Smelley, passed away. 

Carol Burns Smelley was a calm, thoughtful woman who lived her years “to their best purpose,” filling up her days with meaningful work that she loved. Early in her career, Smelley had a dream to care for troubled youth during a time when “there was no concept, really, of a troubled youth, an emotionally-disturbed youth.” With patience and great care, this dream resulted in her founding our non-profit agency, Youth Home, with the goal of providing a home-like environment for youth who would otherwise be homeless. In 1968, with only $8,000, she opened her first home supporting six children in the foster care system. 

Under her leadership, an initial $8,000 in community donations grew to a $2 million budget that same year, growing from the single-family home into a program that supported 10 homes and nearly 100 youth. "Paul Meers bought the first house on Battery Street. Jeanette Rockefeller sent a washer and dryer. Suddenly there was furniture, and somehow the money just came," Smelley recalled. 

Carol delivered outpatient programs, sponsored foster care, and managed approximately 75 employees. And the financial support continued to come over the years under Smelley's tenure, along with the corporate and community involvement of more than 900 volunteers.

She was a dynamic motivator, high-profile fundraiser and tenacious non-profit director, while maintaining her infamous calm and thoughtful spirit.

Smelley's love of working with youth went back to her upbringing in Jonesboro, where she remembered helping her mother serve the under-privileged in a settlement house that offered food, a library, and other aid.

She was an active member of First Baptist Church there, and along with her youth group became involved with a mission that had been established in a poor rural area.

By the time she left home, Smelley knew that she wanted to work with troubled youth, and after graduating from Baylor University at age 20, she consciously chose jobs that would prepare her for service in that field. She was a teacher, a church youth director, and Baptist Student Union director at the Arkansas State Teachers College (now the University of Central Arkansas).

She then earned her master's degree in social work at Columbia University in New York City. During that time, she was able to work in her first residential treatment center and to research similar organizations around the country. It was then that she discovered how few opportunities Arkansas had available for treatment.

Moved by her research, she wrote home to Winthrop Rockefeller (who at the time was just a civic-minded cattle rancher) and asked him: "What are you doing for troubled adolescents in Arkansas?” Rockefeller gave the letter to Mary McLeod, who maintained much of his charitable interests, and McLeod stayed in touch with her. 

We are so moved by her history here in Little Rock, and forever grateful to her for the work she did building Youth Home into the highly serviceable organization it is today. We are very sad to have lost such a wonderful woman and friend, and offer our sincerest condolences to those who loved her. 

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About Youth Home

Today Youth Home, inc. is still a nonprofit psychiatric treatment center for youth with severe behavioral disorders and mental illnesses. Youth Home is now recognized nation-wide as experts in the treatment of Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD), and are TRICARE® In Network, proudly supporting military families across the country. Youth Home built on the foundation that Carol Burns Smelley laid, and now features a Residential Treatment program that highlights Trauma-Informed CBT Therapy, Award-Winning Recreational Therapy, an On-Campus Education Program, as well as Individual, Family, and Group Therapies. Youth Home treats adolescents ages 12-17, who have a primary diagnosis of RAD, Depression, Anxiety, Trauma, PTSD, ADD/ADHD, or OCD.

Over 25 years ago, we expanded our services to include an outpatient clinic, Behavioral Health Services of Arkansas, which offers therapy and counseling to our Central Arkansas families. BHSA specializes in Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, Trauma and PTSD Counseling, as well as Therapy Services for Depression, Anxiety and More.

Quotes & Citation from: Carol Smelley.. (n.d.) >The Free Library. (2014). Retrieved Jun 13 2023 from https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Carol+Smelley.-a07915647