Therapeutic boarding schools are but one of the many options for providing services to struggling teens.   There are community services, residential treatment centers, wilderness programs, and a variety of hybrids.  Discerning which placement would best suit the needs of a student can be a difficult and wearisome task.

At the Family Foundation School, we realize that our option is not necessarily the best one for any given student and to that end we advise parents to consider as many resources as possible when trying to discern an appropriate placement for their child.  Often this process can be aided by the expertise of an independent third party, such as an educational consultant.  We also encourage parents to do research on the field, remembering that especially with the web, each piece of information needs to be considered in relationship to a broader whole.

Even when the decision has been made to seek placement in a therapuetic boarding school, how do you decide from amongst the options?  Recently Jeff Brain created a guide to help provide parents with an assessment strategy when considering placement at therapuetic boarding schools.   The questions within will allow parents to gather the scope of information needed to make an informed choice.

There are many pressures on organizations like ours that focus on serving struggling teens.  Cultivating a therapeutic milieu takes constant attention.  Attempting to close the academic gap for students like ours who often often arrive at therapeutic boarding schools behind in their studies demands a team approach that incorporates feedback from the students, the parents, the previous placement and our staff.  And it’s always essential to keep our organization in a transformative mode so that it can continue to grow as best practices change.

All the tasks that face us demand good communication.  Even during these difficult economic times, as a leadership team we spend a large percentage of out efforts focusing on the demands of communication.   And the challenge comes in many forms.   Internal memos, external releases, crafting attentive responses for the wide range of constituencies that we are in dialogue with; helping our staff to have the consistent messaging; facilitating communication between our students and their families of origin.

It’s important to remember the factors that enhance the quality of communication.  This includes appropriate knowledge of the subject under consideration, showing patience, an even temperament, and active listening.  Giving attention to both verbal and nonverbal cues while showing courtesy, demonstrating understanding, and nonjudgmental attitudes are musts.  And where these aspects are missing, regardless if it’s with student, staff, parent or community member, helping others to join into these demands to ensure clarity of communication lines needs to remain a top priority.

These principles, which align with the spiritual values of the world’s religious traditions, become practical tools for a young person in recovery when they regard their behavior in relationship to these goals.   Am I being pure in my motivations?  Was that an honest response?  What does love demand of me here?  Can I become more unselfish?  These are the types of questions that arise from our students when they are using the absolutes as a compass to guide their journey.

Over the last two days we have renamed the family units at the Family Foundation School, a therapeutic boarding school in Hancock, NY.  Each residential unit now has a house name derived from a hero of recovery.  The change was ushered in with group competitions that encouraged participation and enthusiasm.

What was fascinating from the leadership perspective was how well our student body embraced and responded to the changes.  In many ways the students have led the staff into making the needed adjustments.  Change is a difficult but necessary aspect of life.  Often the challenge it presents us with is one of acceptance.  Throughout the past two days we witnessed ample evidence of the recovery maxim that acceptance is key.

Dogs abound on our campus.  And so do reptiles if you take a walk up to the woodcarving studio and visit the cold-blooded menagerie.  And there’s a reason.  As a therapeutic boarding school, the relationships of our students to the many animals they interact with provide many opportunities for growth and development.

“Anyone who has ever loved a pet knows about an animal’s ability to comfort us, reduce anxiety, nurture empathy, and enhance quality of life. Unfortunately, and for a variety of societal and personal reasons, many people today lack the time, ability and/or motivation to develop and benefit from a human-animal bond. This is especially true of high-risk teens.”  Christine Hawkins, MSW, Animal Assisted Therapy for High Risk Teens

For those interested, Animal Assisted Therapy in Counseling by Cynthia K. Chandler, is a useful resource that looks at the benefits of ATT from all facets.

As therapeutic boarding schools, wilderness programs and residential programs for struggling teens have grown and matured over the past thirty years, they have worked diligently to share best practices and to define quality safety and care standards.  Inviting outside accreditation organizations like the Joint Commission along with the efforts of our peer organizations across the nation to work with individual states to craft appropriate legislation point to the commitment of the entire field to see the best outcome for as many students as possible.

Behavioral health care organizations must always wrestle with the fact that each program is not a perfect fit for every student.  Likewise, even the best practices and the highest level of care may not result in the sought after transformation that brought the student into the program in the first place.  All the aspects that come together form a therapeutic milieu must strive to provide the optimal setting for transformation while realizing that the results are never within our control.

Many times the challenges we see in struggling teens are complex, with a mixture of behavioral, developmental and psychological realities pulli8ng in opposite directions.  Often depression is an underlying reality.  As this resource on teenage depression points out, common symptoms of teen depression include:

• has trouble making/keeping friends
• declining grades/truancy
• loss of interest in normally focused activities
• anger/irritability/hostility
• weepiness/sadness
• restlessness/agitation
• excessive sexual behavior
• acting-out behavior (stealing, violence, self-injury)
• declining self-care and hygiene
• negative self-talk/low self-esteem
• disordered eating habits/change in appetite
• pessimism
• somatic complaints (headaches, stomach aches, etc.)
• isolationism/withdrawal
• difficulty with concentrating and/or decision making
• personality changes
• suicidal ideation
• substance use

When you are searching for high schools for troubled teens, there are many questions that can help uncover the information that will help make the best choice for your child.  Jeff Brain has just published a guide to help parents make an informed decision.  Within this resource Jeff develops dozens of important questions, provides objective resources to help provide perspective, and gives a clear overview of options so that exist to meet the needs of struggling youth.  As Jeff shares,

“My hope in writing this is to provide parents with a checklist — a list of important and necessary things to look for, questions to ask, and mistakes to avoid when touring a campus. The list is developed not only from my experience as the director of admissions at a therapeutic boarding school, but also as a clinician who has visited over 100 schools and programs.  From both sides of the table, I have experienced the challenge of not only learning and understanding programs, but in accurately representing them as well.”

The resource list from this resource is as follows:

The following are good, objective, informative websites that can provide you with helpful information about your therapeutic school search.

www.strugglingteens.com

www.gposner.com/resources/resources.htm

www.natsap.org

www.iecaonline.org

Follow Jeff’s blog at Help for Struggling Teens and Families.

Over the past three days I heard some startling stories of frustration that erupted into violence.  A microwave oven that was thrown out of a third floor window.  A car driven in reverse at full throttle until hitting a parked car.  A sibling pushed through  glass door.

Some of the angry teens I work with define themselves as rage addicts.  Out in the extreme emotion they claim a type of dominance over their troubles.   But as relationships break and consequences with the law and elsewhere mount, the appearance of control becomes harder and harder to maintain.  And the very frustration that is fueling the rage becomes even more entrenched.

Fortunately, there is a way out.  One of the joys of our graduation weekend at The Family Foundation School is that alumni return and share their example of living successful lives in the 12 step mode.  As one alumni, now entering his final year of college shared with a group of us.  “The 12 steps are not just for addicts and drunks.  It’s a way of living that can deal with any problem whatsoever.  And who doesn’t have problems?”

Traveling around Capitol Hill yesterday to lend support for the efforts of the Senate to bring appropriate federal regulation and oversight to the residential placement of teens and children, I listened to an interesting conversation unfold.

It detailed the difficulties of a parent whose son was labeled learning disabled at an early age.  A decade of struggle ensued with the school system as this mother attempted to have her child appropriately served.

After quietly listening, educational consultant and publisher Lon Woodbury responded,

“I prefer learning difference.”

Lon has shown that he is careful with words and the problems labels have cause.  His essay on his preference for using struggling teens is a case in point.

When I later asked him to elaborate further concerning learning difference, he shared an interesting story of sitting in three semesters of a science class where the professor continually taught in a manner inconsistent with his learning difference.  Regardless of his attempts, there was no access for him as a concrete thinker into the material.  And his frequent questions in an attempt to find that access where met with “you are not getting it.”

Is there ever a case where this is an appropriate response for a teacher?  I think that’s a question worth exploring.  I propose our teachers try this one on for size : “I am not getting it to you…”