Aspen wilderness therapy programs

Why This May Be Important To You: The drug and alcohol use by teens admitted to the OBH programs reflects similar usage of teens admitted to residential drug and alcohol treatment centers. In other words, OBH programs are an effective alternative to other types of programs. The majority of teens in the study exhibited extreme resistance to treatment and change upon admission to the program.

At discharge, and at the six-month follow-up, the majority of teens indicated an increased awareness of their issues, and an active interest in wanting to change. Why This May Be Important To You: Outdoor Behavioral Healthcare programs are not just about fixing the current issues, they also provide the foundation to prepare teens for the future. Placing your child in any treatment program is a difficult decision. Aspen Education Group knows that any study, no matter how positive the results indicate, will not make the emotional process of placing your child in a program any easier.

However, the data from this study indicates that most all adolescents who attend an OBH program, benefit from that program. We see the results everyday. They are real. I currently am able to engage with people through walks in the Seattle and greater surrounding area, rock climbing indoors, and day hiking. This style of therapy is often great for couples and young adults!

Note: Please be aware that due to the nature of wilderness therapy, I cannot guarantee complete confidentiality as we may be utilizing outdoor space where people are, but I do everything I can to create a level of safety by finding places that are as private as possible. Not following the instructions given by the staff members usually leads to punishments that can include being ignored and forced to stay silent, being deprived of food or water or being forced to sleep outside of a tent, without a sleeping bag.

During the time spent in their program, the teens are completely isolated from the outside world and any authorized letters to their families are carefully monitored. Most of the time, and from the beginning of the program, parents receive advice on how important long term treatment is. They are convinced that the intervention can bring some meaningful behavior changes only if the youth stays long enough in the program.

A stay in that kind of facility is usually meant to last at least a year, and often lasts much longer, sometimes several years. Is WT an evidence based and appropriate treatment to help children and teenagers with behavioral or psychological issues? As a mental health professional and a physician, I think that WT is very problematic for different reasons. Abducting a child from their home, transporting them to a place they know nothing about, strip searching them in the middle of nowhere in a forest or a desert is probably the worst way to create a therapeutic connexion between a patient and a therapist.

But that is not that important because, most of the time, there are actually no properly trained therapists taking care of the children in these programs.

To maximize their profits, these companies usually hire young and unqualified staff members who are not trained to help and treat struggling youth. Wilderness therapy programs - not to be confused with "boot camps" or other military-style teen programs - have proven effective with helping teens in other studies as well. This study, led by researcher Keith Russell, Ph.

Other findings included significant reductions in symptoms of pre-existing depression, anxiety and stress after attending a program. For this most recent study, Aspen surveyed more than 10, parents and received over 1, responses to date. The study found that there was a dramatic improvement in feelings of safety, trust and the likelihood of receiving an education upon return from one of Aspen's wilderness therapy programs. While 87 percent of parents feared for their child's safety prior to treatment, only 22 percent felt that way after treatment.