Starr_Commonwealth • Albion Michigan - General Guide to the Community

Starr Commonwealth Today and Yesterday

The video above offers examples of Starr Commonwealth’s work in 2025. Young people describe gaining practical and academic skills, from finding employment and learning to budget to improving schoolwork and managing anger. Starr staff discuss trauma-informed and play-based approaches that view children’s behavior as a form of communication, while also providing support for parents and families.

Starr Commonwealth Today

Starr Commonwealth’s work is rooted in the belief that there is no such thing as a bad child and that behavior is often a form of communication.

For more than a century, Starr has worked with children and families affected by adversity. Today, that mission is carried out through Starr Behavioral Health, the Student Resilience and Empowerment Center (SREC), F.O.C.U.S. Forward, Transition to Success®, and trauma and resilience training for professionals and caregivers.

Together, these programs are designed to help young people build resilience and independence, provide individuals and families with compassionate support, strengthen the adults and organizations around them, and help communities address barriers at a systems level.

From its roots in Albion to its work in communities across the country, Starr Commonwealth continues its mission of helping children, families, and communities gain the support, tools, and opportunities they need to thrive.

Historical Marker for Starr Commonwealth, Front and Back

Excerpts from “Faith Made Visible,” a book about Floyd Starr

In 1913 an idealistic young man founded the Starr Commonwealth for Boys on a small farm west of Albion, Michigan. Although derided at the time for his conviction that “There is no such thing as a bad boy,” Floyd Starr gathered about him a growing family of problem youngsters who soon called him “Uncle Floyd.” They were to number in the thousands by the time of his death in 1980.

As Floyd Starr declared many times, the Commonwealth was his life. The story of Floyd Starr’s life is a combined biography of the founder and a historical account of his institution. In other respects, it reaches beyond one person and his achievements, for it often reflects the growth of professionalism in child care across recent decades as well as current trends in methods of treatment. (1)

"There is no such thing as a bad boy."

Floyd Starr Tweet

Pervading this work is the motto of the Starr clan which the family carried to the New World in the late 17th century – Vive en Espoir, “Live in Hope.” Amid the uncertainties of a charitable redirectional school, they were brave words for Floyd Starr and his co-workers across the past three-quarters of a century. At the outset of his lifework, Floyd Starr added another word to the family motto. Not only did he have hope for the Commonwealth, but faith as well: faith in the basic goodness of wayward young people, faith in the soundness of his principles, faith in the viability of his methods, and faith in a compassionate public for its support of his undertaking. The Starr Schools today are indeed living examples of “faith made visible.”

(1) Excerpt from the book jacket of “Faith Made Visible” the life of Floyd Starr. Copyright Starr Commonwealth. Used with permission