“Our nation’s young people are facing an unprecedented mental health crisis,” stated a fact sheet from the US government in July. “More than 40 percent of teenagers state that they struggle with persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, and more than half of parents and caregivers express concern over their children’s mental well-being.”
Many parents of children requiring treatment for a mental health condition are concerned about the impact on the education of their child. A good education is important for personal growth and future employment. It can help each student improve their self-image and their self-confidence and offer different tools for problem-solving. It can stimulate mental agility and help make good life decisions.
Turning Winds is a therapeutic boarding school with a full residential continuum of care for teens with mental health issues. Our clients achieve success through a combination of therapeutic and educational approaches that together provide the best possible outcomes. These therapeutic approaches, many provided only in our specialized boarding school environment, include character education, health, and wellness of body and mind, outdoor therapeutic experiential education, therapeutic and academic success. Together, they constitute our five pillars of change.
The Academic Pillar
Turning Winds offers a high-quality academic experience for each of its teenage clients. Students enrolled at Turning Winds experience an individualized academic experience. Our research shows that our students earn an average GPA of 3.5 while here, and in a 12-month time period our average student completes about 2 years of school while experiencing an increase in GPA of almost a full letter grade versus what their GPA was before coming to our Montana boarding school.
Our highly trained, board-certified teachers assess the academic needs of each teen during the admission process, taking into account previous transcripts, learning disabilities, strengths, interests, and any specific needs or accommodations as outlined in a student’s individual education plan (IEP). Under the direction of our education staff, our individualized academic program guides students to academic success by improving areas of academic weakness and capitalizing on existing strengths.
As teachers work with each student, they develop individualized academic goals based on each client’s learning style, providing them the best opportunity to experience academic success. Although many of our students arrive discouraged by their past educational experience, once they are here, they learn to excel academically because of our time-tested one-on-one approach. In addition, our professional teachers are diligent about college prep and understand it is a topmost priority for our students who will graduate and receive their diplomas from Turning Winds. Indeed, academic success is an integral part of the experience for our teenage boys and girls.
Turning Winds represents a critical resource for adolescents, families, and communities. The American healthcare system lacks the required specialized care to address adolescent mental health disorders adequately. While other programs offer similar combinations of clinical, academic, and experiential services, Turning Winds uses comparatively long treatment durations, specialized milieu, and experiential programming to deepen the effectiveness of care.
At Turning Winds, it’s the people who make the difference. Over the course of more than twelve years, 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.
