By Stephen C. Schultz
RedCliff Ascent is an Outdoor Behavioral Healthcare (OBH)
program for adolescents who are essentially stuck in the adolescent stages of
development. They lack the coping mechanisms, competencies and discipline
necessary to manage their lives at an age appropriate level.
In other treatment settings, these students
may be labeled by their diagnoses, which often includes ADHD, ODD, Depression,
Anxiety, ASD, etc.
The RedCliff treatment protocol recognizes that the student and the illness are
two distinctly separate components. A student’s life should not be defined by a
diagnosis. Each is specifically addressed independently in the therapeutic
process.
We help the student and family understand how a specific
cluster of symptoms associated with their diagnosis has impacted the student’s
developmental progression. RedCliff’s
therapeutic model disrupts these unhealthy patterns of behavior and
reintegrates the student into a more healthy developmental process.
Our treatment model has been evolving for well over two
decades. With over 15 years of field research and clinical leadership, Redcliff
is considered one of the premier wilderness programs in the United States.
Why Do I Care?
Unlike any other program, we recognize that regardless of
the student’s diagnosis there is an underlying developmental stall. RedCliff’s
treatment modality addresses both issues. The model was developed and refined
through research informed treatment practices.
RedCliff has two therapeutic goals. They are to disrupt
current behavioral patterns, or the developmental stall of the student, and
reintegrate the student into the appropriate level of adolescent development for their age. In order for
therapy to be most effective, the first goal must be accomplished before the
second can be initiated.
A teen who has stalled out does not struggle with a lack
of entertainment in his life. What he lacks is the ability to master the
mundane responsibilities that come with school, work, and family
relationships.
At RedCliff, the goal is to help students find meaning in
those daily activities, rather than search for an outside “thrill.” A typical day will include hiking, practicing
wilderness survival skills such bow/drill fire making, orienteering, botanical
identification, journaling, and low-impact camping. Each of these activities
also has an expectation of competence and mastery. This provides the therapists
a rich diagnostic environment for therapeutic sessions.
Enrollment at RedCliff ascent is open-ended. The therapeutic goal is not to force students
to comply. Rather, it is to give students an opportunity to gain insight, develop
internal motivation and to achieve position of excellence, mastery and
competence.
Because the program is achievement based, length of stay
will vary from student to student. Our goal is to help students advance to
their next developmental level as soon as it is therapeutically wise to do so.
Why Do I Care?
Our unconventional approach is based on the quest for
therapeutic excellence, not what is convenient. What is best for the student,
not what is happening in the marketplace, is at the heart of every intervention
and therapeutic protocol.
As psychoanalyst Fritz Perls explained, “What is
essential is not that the therapist learn something about the patient and then
teach it to him, but that the therapist teach the patient how to learn about
himself.”
RedCliff offers a consistent, unvarying expectation of
each student with a consistent structure to facilitate their development. The
program structure does not vary from staff to staff or from therapist to
therapist. This provides a seamless transition from assessment to treatment as
students confront the challenges of the program.
A consistent behavioral standard provides a way to
measure the student’s developmental progress. Although the structure does not
change, therapy itself is individualized to meet each student’s needs.
Interventions can be custom designed to address a particular student’s specific
patterns of resistance.
We have found students in the early stages of RedCliff
therapy are still very focused on maintaining a disruptive family dynamic, even
though they are geographically separated from the rest of the family. Their
maladaptive behaviors will often be amplified as they struggle to maintain a
perceived control over what is happening at home. It’s especially critical that
parents stand firm during this aspect of treatment.
To help them identify and understand this process, parents
have access to information and updates on the parent portal. This online
private portal is designed to give parents specific tools for successful
parent/child relationships both during the RedCliff experience and at its
completion. Through interactions with the therapists, parents learn how to
assess their child’s level of commitment to the family
relationship, as well as how to judge the effectiveness of the wilderness experience.
In addition, parents are required to complete our
exclusive Parent Narratives. For many
students, the Narratives are their first real look at their own histories. It
is their opportunity to learn of their parents’ triumphs and failures. The
Narratives are also designed to coincide with student autobiographies. Each is
shared at a specific point in the student’s individual therapy. These exercises
often become the focal point around which parent and child begin to build a
sense of unity.
These exclusive Narratives are also a useful tool in measuring
the parent’s commitment to their child’s therapy and the program in general.
When parents are unwilling to complete their assignments therapists are alerted
to potential problems in the family dynamic. That dynamic may be a factor in
determining what the next step should be in the student’s transition plan.
Why do I Care?
Parent centered learning as discussed in the parent
portal and the Parent Narratives, done jointly with student learning, help
parents understand their child’s level of progress and commitment in the
therapeutic process. Parents learn how to assess the student’s commitment to
the family relationship and how to measure their son or daughters willingness to
re-enter the adolescent stages of “healthy” development.
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