Centerpoint's Residential Department is headed by a Residential Director and staffed by Supervisory level staff who oversee direct care staff. The residential staff create a normalized, therapeutically supportive environment that maximizes treatment gains through supporting and testing the boys' developing competencies. In the therapeutic milieu the boys learn to control their behaviors, take responsibility, make decisions, master social and self care skills, and to use their leisure time safely and productively.

A foremost goal for all Centerpoint residents is helping them to achieve control over unsafe behaviors so that continued growth can occur in a less restrictive setting. With ample positive reinforcement and the consistent availability of attention from staff, residents are helped to establish a repertoire of socially acceptable, adaptive ways of managing and coping with stress.

Positive reinforcement is a major tenet for Centerpoint's behavior management polices. Staff members support and encourage each resident's movement toward positive ways of coping through informal interactions and through formal programmatic structures. The program utilizes both a daily point sheet and a level system to reinforce basic routines and behavioral expectations . As residents move through the level system and after demonstrating more sophisticated coping skills, their level of responsibility and community exposure increase. Included in the privilege system are off grounds activities during which a resident must complete lifeskills tasks (going to the bank, using the laundrymat, ordering a meal) while accompanied by two staff. Subsequent to the successful completion of this step, residents are given the opportunity to go on “off grounds” trips in a small group with staff to shop, attend a movie, go bowling, etc. Paramount to each increase in level/privileges is a residents' ability to remain safe despite an increase in responsibilities and therefore, stress.

As a resident progresses to a point in treatment when his need for a secure setting has begun to decrease, aftercare programs are identified with collaborating agency representatives and efforts are undertaken to begin to transition the resident to a less restrictive setting. The average length of stay for a typical Centerpoint resident is approximately one year to eighteen months.