Over the past twenty years, Turning Winds has matured into a sophisticated program that blends the benefits of a wilderness program, a residential treatment center, and a boarding school.
This blended approach to treatment utilizes both outdoor experiences and indoor environments to prevent treatment fatigue and increase engagement. A big driver of change is developing a relationship of trust between patients and therapists, and we have a strong ability to foster those connections given the unique “fun” environment at Turning Winds.
The Turning Winds difference is grounded in this unusual hybrid approach and our skilled, caring, and dedicated team working tirelessly to give our teenage clients the best care possible. We help teens rediscover themselves, and leave here with a renewed belief in their own abilities.
An important element of that approach is the non-institutional feel of the Montana campus.
“Everything that we do is really meant to promote fun,” says Turning Winds co-founder and chief financial officer John Baisden, Jr. “I mean, the kids don’t feel like they’re in a hospital. They don’t feel like they’re in a lockdown facility because it’s not a lockdown facility.”
Turning Winds has turned the concept of clinical treatment upside down, providing clients with more of a home-like environment—a family environment that really speaks to their needs.
Head chef Veronica Langton is an integral part of that family environment. She is an experienced and excellent international cook who is in charge of ordering, preparing, and creating delicious meals for the students and her colleagues. But Langton does much more than just cook meals, she is able to connect with clients because she is fully aware of the struggles Turning Winds students go through.
Turning Winds provides a safe, nurturing refuge—a home away from home that gives teens time and space to heal. It’s nothing like a hospital: there are no wristbands, hospital clothes. white walls, or metal doors.
“Just that familial connection, building that trust is really, really critical,” says John Baisden, Jr. “Everything we do speaks to building confidence, creating little moments of success, and just getting the kids to open up and to feel like, gosh, they do matter.”
A lot of confidence-building and fun comes with international service trips Turning Winds organizes for its clients twice a year. It’s not tourism but an uplifting therapeutic experience since it involves helping other people. Traveling to foreign countries to be immersed in other cultures and help people less fortunate than ourselves affords new perspectives and the ability to learn that all people are essentially the same.
“A lot of what we do really creates a different perspective. Every kid reaches a point where they’re doing really well. They’re not only stable, but they’re thriving. They’re just thriving in this environment,” explains John Baisden, Jr.
At Turning Winds, it’s the people who make the difference when it comes to creating a home environment. Over the course of two decades, we’ve built a team of some of the world’s finest academic and therapeutic professionals, all of whom share the same goal: to help teens re-engage meaningfully with their lives, families, and their futures.
Contact us online for more information, or call us at 800-845-1380. If your call isn’t answered personally, one of us will get back to you as soon as possible.
