Home > Treatment Programs > Teens & Children > Wilderness Therapy Programs

Wilderness programs that specialize in the treatment of drug and alcohol abuse in children, teens, and adolescents.

Links

• Adirondack Leadership Expeditions

  Adirondack Leadership Expeditions is a character development wilderness program for troubled teens that promotes personal growth through a focus on insight-oriented experiences. The forested, mountain setting removes urban distractions and simplifies options to help students gain insight into their core values and accept responsibility for their choices. Their nurturing approach helps participants address personal issues, achieve success in a safe environment, and develop their leadership potential.

• Phoenix Outdoor

  Phoenix Outdoor is a licensed wilderness therapy program located near Asheville, North Carolina focusing on teenagers ages 13-17 who need treatment for substance abuse or chemical dependency. Phoenix Outdoor is a 12-Step based program that utilizes the wilderness as its treatment setting. A field-based curriculum, group sessions, individual therapy, psycho-educational classes, and 12-Step support combine to encourage adolescents to consider the changes they need to make and how to create a path to stay clean and sober.

• SUWS

  Since 1981 SUWS has assisted young people with identifying and working through internal conflicts and emotional obstacles that have kept them from responding to parental efforts, schools, and treatment. These are children who are inherently good and have the ability to be successful, but because of unhealthy misperceptions about themselves, they have limited access to their own abilities and strengths. SUWS wilderness programs provide families with a safe and immediate intervention by utilizing its search and rescue metaphor, individualized treatment plans, and flexible length of stay.

• SUWS of the Carolinas

  SUWS of the Carolinas is a therapeutic wilderness program with a focus on clinical intervention and assessment. By using the outdoors as an alternative to conventional treatment environments and removing modern distractions, students begin to accept responsibility for personal decisions, address individual and family issues, and become invested in their own personal growth. Since 1981, SUWS programs have provided essential guidance and support to thousands of misdirected and at-risk adolescents.

• SUWS Youth

  SUWS Youth offers a highly structured environment that provides each child with a positive and rewarding learning experience. The concrete thinking inherent in this age group requires tangible learning experiences from which to build. Using a base camp model that provides safety, security and predictability, the program's high staff-to-student ratio and personalized treatment plans ensure emotional growth and increased awareness of self and others. Unique in that the Youth Program uses llamas in the therapeutic process, a child has the opportunity to gain hands-on experience in developing responsibility and care-giving skills.

• Aspen Achievement Academy

  Located in Southern Utah, Aspen Achievement Academy is a flexible length of stay program for adolescents 13-17, emphasizing therapy, experiential learning and behavioral change. As one of the few licensed and accredited outdoor treatment programs, Aspen Achievement Academy has a decade of history in providing high impact professional staffed treatment to adolescents and their families. As a clinically based program , Aspen Achievement Academy is contracted with a number of insurance companies and EAP's to provide treatment for mental health and substance abuse.

• Catherine Freer Wilderness Therapy Expeditions

  Catherine Freer Wilderness Expeditions serves adolescents who are struggling with school, abusing alcohol and drugs, challenged with ADD/ADHD, experiencing family conflict, experiencing depression, emotional problems, anger and defiance. Located in Oregon, Catherine Freer offers 21 and 51 day treks.

• Four Circles Recovery Center

  Four Circles Recovery Center for older teens and young adults is an innovative addictions, substance abuse, and co-occuring mental health disorders treatment program that combines a traditional counseling setting with extensive wilderness experiences. Four Circles employs the most effective, cutting-edge clinical modalities with an underlying traditional 12-step philosophy to create the foundation for sustained recovery.

• Monarch Center for Family Healing

  The Monarch Center is an organization dedicated to working with families to reconnect and move through events and issues that have caused dysfunction and stress to arise. In particular, we effectively support parents and youths who are struggling with issues specific to the parent-adolescent relationship by utilizing both wilderness and relationship-based therapy in an intensive and transformative manner. These issues may include disrespecting authority, delinquency, substance abuse, academic struggles, emotional troubles, and peer conflicts.

• Outback Therapeutic Expeditions

  Outback Therapeutic Expeditions blends the best of the "ancient cultural systems" with the most effective and proven therapeutic processes. Before attending Outback, students had been experiencing family conflict, involved in negative peer groups, struggling academically, experimenting with drugs and alcohol, and generally underachieving. Outback offers the highest standards of safety and therapy in the context of one of the most powerful settings for real change - the wilderness.

• Passages to Recovery

  Passages to Recovery is a nomadic wilderness program located in southern Utah incorporating an innovative, holistic approach to a variety of issues including substance abuse, anxiety, depression, difficulties with relationships and others. Passages to Recovery is atreatment and recovery program set in the wilderness. and specializes in helping adults 18 to 50. The program offers a flexible length of stay with a minimum of 35 days. The program integrates the philosophy of the twelve steps with traditional therapy and the healing power of the wilderness.

• SUWS Seasons

  SUWS Seasons is a licensed, clinically focused wilderness treatment program for younger children designed to identify the limiting beliefs and unhealthy behaviors that often can prevent the pursuit of constructive goals and personal achievement. Research and developmental psychology indicates that 11 to 13 year-olds have very specific needs: primarily safety, security, and predictability. Pre-adolescent children and younger teens think in concrete terms and require tangible experiences from which to build.

• Wilderness Quest

  Located in Utah, Wilderness Quest offers treatment from substance use for adolescents and young adults one step at a time through intensive wilderness living and a strong 12-step model of self discovery.