Robert Ketch

Executive Director of Five Acres, Residential & Community-Based Treatment

Robert ‘Bob’ Ketch received his bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Iowa State University and his MSW degree from Tulane University. There, he was one of their first Title IV-E students, and in 1969 he both lived and worked at his formative field placement, a New Orleans settlement house. After graduation, he did public child welfare work and served several years as a therapist and supervisor at a Lutheran Social Services agency. In 1977, he moved to Southern California to become the Director of Professional Services at Five Acres, then a residential treatment facility.

Identified as an emerging leader early in his career by the Child Welfare League of America, Ketch engaged in several immersion trainings that shaped his thinking on early intervention, research, family permanence and the importance of agency and program diversification. Over the years, he held increasingly responsible positions at Five Acres until he became its Executive Director in 1983, a position he held 28 years.

Over time, Ketch shifted the focus of the agency from residential treatment to community prevention services in the form of home treatment and school-based interventions. To succeed, he knew he needed three things: an engaged board of directors and volunteers, staff who set goals and measured outcomes, and multiple partnerships for funding and strategic growth. He cultivated relationships with business leaders and converted them into board members, requiring them to serve on committees with staff. Volunteers became special friends to the children who lived at Five Acres and spearheaded all fundraising events.

Ketch emphasized program development, accreditation, and Continuous Quality Improvement; he ensured that measurement and research were integral parts of all their services. He and board members attended weekly outcome conferences with staff and family members. Five Acres became a model agency with a litany of partners, including: Casey Family Programs, Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Child Welfare League, the Outcome Pioneers, Deaf Family Treatment, Family Finding and Engagement, Grace Center, Digital Storytelling and Residential Wraparound of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, and the Fifth District of the Board of Supervisors.

Ketch held leadership positions with the statewide Alliance for Children and Families and the local Association of Community Human Services Agencies. He grew Five Acres into a multiservice, multimillion-dollar budget agency. Ketch was visionary, collaborative, and creative; he inspired those who worked with him to grow and serve our profession in new ways. Many of his mentees rose to management positions in academia, public agencies, and private nonprofit organizations.

After he retired in 2011, Ketch ran an art appreciation group at a Veteran’s Administration Hospital. True to form, he published a research paper on this project, which made an important contribution to the mental health literature. Ketch passed away in 2016 after a short illness. In 2017, Five Acres awarded him its highest honor, the Dorothy Cook Lifetime Achievement Award.