CLINICAL MODEL

Our Passion - Change of Heart

West Ridge Academy has a passion for helping young men and young women achieve change of heart through Principle-Centered Change. It is the core of everything we do!

West Ridge Academy recognizes the necessity of all the professional disciplines, i.e. educational, medical, clinical treatment teams and counselors to facilitate positive change in our youth.

We strongly believe that long term behavioral change comes as a result of the discovery, implementation and practice of spiritual and moral values. In contrast, the absence of these values produces negative behavior. We also believe that the families of each young man and young woman need guidance and training in healthy family interaction to ensure lasting change. In essence, we combine professional therapy involving both the young person and his or her family together with the development of spiritual and moral values.

What to Expect

Learn more about what to expect for you and your child!

Understanding the Basic Model

To best understand the steps your child and your family will be going through in order to accomplish the results (change of heart and accountability), it is important to understand the West Ridge Change model. (See Diagram Below).

The process we use to change the lives of our students and their families is presented in the West Ridge Change Model. This model is a reflection of our more than 43 years of working with troubled students in a residential setting.

Results

On the left side of the model you will see these three areas: Results, Tools, and Foundational Principles. There is one main result we are interested in achieving at West Ridge: we want each student to have a change of heart. Behavioral change will come with a change of heart, but is not the primary result we are after. Many young men and young women can change their behavior for a period of time in an effort to fool those providing care; whether parents or a residential treatment center. Behavioral change alone is not lasting. However, if the heart's desire is a productive life, a good relationship with family, sobriety, and so on, good behavior will follow as a byproduct. We focus on the heart.

Foundational Principles

In order to bring a student to a change of heart, there are five foundational principles we must apply. These five principles provide the foundation for everything we do at West Ridge.

1. Family: We believe family is the foundational unit of society. A strong family will help create an environment where lasting positive change can be realized. Accordingly, we focus on family with therapy, visits, and seminars. We want our students connected to their families wherever possible.
2. Spirituality: A connection with Deity can change the life of a troubled soul. God, however understood by our students, motivates them to be better, to love deeper, and to appreciate more. We encourage our students to be more devout in whatever faith they bring to the Academy.
3. Integrity: The world does not embrace a liar. Most of our students come to us lacking integrity. This lack of integrity impacts every aspect of their lives. Without integrity our students will not enjoy satisfying relationships, meaningful employment, or, most significantly, internal peace.
4. Work/Service: The "I" in a person's life is not always the most important focus. Many of our troubled students come to West Ridge focusing only on themselves in all their activities. We want them to get outside of themselves and think only of others for periods of time. Our work and service projects help our students do this.
5. Gratitude: There is little need for selfishness and entitlement in any young person's life. We believe an attitude of gratitude keeps our students in a humble space that opens them up to deep and lasting interpersonal relationships.

 

Tools

There are specific tools we use to move students through the program model and toward a change of heart. The most important tool we use is relationships. Research and common sense tell us that relationships are the primary change agent in therapy and a residential setting. Nothing motivates most people as powerfully as having a mentor who cares deeply and guides lovingly toward a more positive life. As their primary responsibility, parents, therapists, home staff, and others have the mandate to forge influential connections with our students and motivate them by example and love.

The tool we use to teach integrity is agreements. Life is filled with explicit and implicit agreements. An example of an explicit agreement is an employee getting paid for doing a job. An employer agrees to pay an employee for doing work, and the employee agrees to do the work in order to get paid. An implicit agreement is one that is assumed and understood in life. There are general, unspoken societal agreements such as not yelling at each other, not swearing, and not stealing. Our students often come to us doing a poor job at explicit agreements and often being impassive toward implicit agreements. We teach them about agreements and hold them accountable for their actions in all they do.

Our environment is a unique and life-changing tool in treatment. Residential treatment in general is unique in its power to control so many variables in a student's life. West Ridge Academy in particular is unique in the setup of our residential treatment. Our campus is situated on acres of open space with modern academic, recreational, office, and residential buildings. The home staff lives in cottages with the students, which gives the students focused and constant attention and lets the home staff know the students on a personal level. Our students are able to participate in high school sports; providing an opportunity that few residential treatment centers can offer. Having personal spiritual advisors as part of the treatment team is also an unmatched benefit of West Ridge.

Finally, we harness the tool of transitions to maintain progress the students make in residential treatment. Residential treatment is a highly structured and safe environment that creates space for change. Going from that highly structured environment back into the .open. environment of a home, without managing that transition, is an invitation to relapse wherever problems have occurred in the past (drugs, friends, broken relationships, and so on). We manage these transitions with weekend visits, day programs, and aftercare to test the real progress students have made and to sustain their accountability when they return to their homes. No other residential treatment center in the world gives the same attention to transitions that West Ridge does.

Therapeutic Treatment

In our highly structured environment, almost everything your child experiences is a form of treatment and has therapeutic benefits.

Four Phases of Treatment

With the tools from our Change Model, we work to soften and change hearts, and we find that this change happens in four predictable phases. We've described these phases to help parents understand our program, but we don't use the phases as a .level. system. Our students rarely know what phase they are in. We don't advertise these phases to them, rather we recognize how they are doing relative to the phases or progress markers you see below.

• Phase I: Preparation for Change
• Phase II: Behavioral Change
• Phase III: Character Change
• Phase IV: Leadership

 

Phase I: Preparation for Change

When a student enters the program at West Ridge, he or she begins Phase I. At this time the student should receive an impact letter and begin therapy. We believe a student is leaving this phase when he/she begins to move from denial to honesty. Students in this phase are mostly working on getting rid of the garbage in their past. Full disclosure of all issues and ownership of those issues is required before the student is believed to have moved to Phase II. During Phase I, a student moves from being angry about being at West Ridge to acceptance, ownership, and understanding that the choices he/she made in the past placed him/her at the Academy. Students in this phase need constant supervision.

Some students start the program in denial, which sometimes looks like a"honeymoon." After starting the program, the student begins by trying to please everyone and is obedient, humble, and cooperative. The student's actions may be sincere but are usually temporary and shallow. By placing children in the Academy, we instantly get their attention and many will try a form of instant change. This honeymoon is just a manipulation and whatever motivates a student during this phase has no lasting power. Many times, students who honeymoon are in denial. They are motivated by the temporary discomfort of being placed away from home; they are not motivated by sincere desire. Generally, a student is in Phase I for 45 days or more before moving to the next phase.

Phase II: Behavioral Change

During this phase students become very familiar with the agreements and are trained on how to keep them. Students also create and process an autobiography that helps them see how their past behavior has led to different consequences. Throughout this phase, students no longer have a problem with honesty, but are most likely inconsistent in keeping all of their commitments. They still require supervision and may need others to make decisions for them. As students progress through this phase they become more and more trustworthy. Students move from not keeping their commitments to keeping them. In addition, during this phase love and empathy are growing. In general, students are still working mostly on themselves, but are beginning to care about how they affect others. They participate willingly in their own therapy but may not always initiate discussion or work. Usually, students are in Phase II for three months or longer before moving to the next phase.

Phase III: Character Change

In Phase III your child is taught relapse prevention and is required to participate in a service activity. He/she also becomes eligible for home visits. During this phase, students can be counted on to keep their commitments. They have goals and are actively working with family and the Academy to accomplish these goals. A student may be in a leadership role at the Academy, and he/she will do fairly well during home visits as long as parents and others aren't too far away. The key values in this phase are love and empathy. Entitlement issues are now being extinguished and the family may feel like pulling the student. The student spends most of this phase fixing family relationships. He/she actively participates in defining his/her therapy and in making decisions about his/her life. If the student sees something wrong, he/she will fix it. The student works with family on issues of friendships, dress, music, religion, and all other family values, although the student may not yet be in complete agreement with his/her family. While working on these issues, students continue to keep their commitments, and they negotiate agreements fairly and sincerely. His/her spiritual life is developing within the Academy environment.

During this phase, it is easy for parents to develop a false sense of security. The student is doing fine at the Academy and during home visits, but this is most likely because the Academy is still providing a great deal of structure. Indeed, the student may be changing but he/she is not ready for aftercare. It takes time to create and maintain positive habits and to make the transition home.

The biggest difference between Phase III and Phase IV is in the amount of temptation a student can handle and the structure he/she needs. A student in Phase III is doing well but still needs some supervision and initiation by others. If the Academy and others do not watch out for this student on a daily basis, he/she will most likely struggle and fail. It takes at least three months for a student to navigate through Phase III.

Phase IV: Leadership

During Phase IV students develop the strength to withstand the temptations of everyday life outside the structure of the Academy. In this phase students are involved in mentoring and achievement experiences. They also have the opportunity to go on a Quest Achievement Experience with the recreation staff. After eight months of treatment, students are also eligible for a day program. This will be discussed with the therapist during the phase. Home visits are very important. Family members should have agreements on all issues. These agreements take time to become habits. By this time, parents should feel comfortable communicating with their child and feel at ease with their ability to work with their child on all issues. Parents should also feel comfortable leaving their child for periods of time. The student monitors himself/herself and proves able to do so by handling problems over and over as they come up. The student shows confidence and competence in the daily habits of successful living. He/she is not only committed to sober and productive living but demonstrates it consistently over time. The student takes the initiative to solve his/her problems. Success in this phase is not merely staying out of trouble; success is embracing a daily habit of solving problems and facing fears. It is a phase of being anxiously engaged in good causes without being coerced. Parents are regaining trust.

This is a phase of transition. The student demonstrates the ability to stay away from potentially dangerous situations and bad habits while on home visits and when he/she is not being watched closely. While it is obvious that parents and the Academy will not stop tracking a student's progress, the fourth phase is a time for him/her to handle more normal activities on the home front. The question is asked, What kinds of things does the student choose to do when given the chance, especially when he/she thinks no one is watching? The student's choices generally should be healthy and indicate a changed heart. The student is in Phase IV for a minimum of two months before becoming eligible for graduation.

Phase Time Frame

Progression from phase to phase takes time. For example, a student might be doing all the right things on any given day, but true change of heart is demonstrated by consistent performance over time. The following is a breakdown of the minimum time frame for each phase. We emphasize that these are minimum time frames and many students do not fall within these parameters. This is not like a prison system where you move on simply because you have done your time. Continual staffing and assessment is ongoing throughout the therapeutic process. Students who do not seem to be progressing from phase to phase are typically just slower to come around. We caution parents to not give up hope with students who are taking longer than the minimum time requirements listed below.

• Phase I: One and a-half to two months minimum.
• Phase II: Three months minimum.
• Phase III: Three months minimum.
• Phase IV: Two months minimum.

 

Specialized Treatment Information

Adoption and Attachment
ADHD
Depression Axiety / Mood Disorders

Residential Living

After a brief observation period (approximately two to five nights), each student is placed into a home. The home placement is made based on input from your child's therapist. Each home has approximately 16 students and a married couple and single adult as the home staff. The home concept helps the student feel less institutionalized. Students are provided with consistent, caring staff members who establish positive relationships while implementing structure and setting appropriate boundaries. Home staff members use and apply West Ridge Academy's philosophy of agreements and natural and logical consequences as the foundation for managing the home.

The home staff members are key members of the student's treatment team at the Academy. They work closely with the student's therapist, teachers, recreation staff, and other staff members to ensure students are working toward treatment goals. Both the home parents and live-in counselor have private apartments connected to the shared living space of the home. They are on-shift Monday through Friday and Sunday evening. Home staff members act as substitute parents while the student is in our care.

Placing students in a home with assigned home parents reinforces that the social, communication, problem solving, and relationship skills learned during treatment are the same skills that need to be implemented when students return to the natural home environment upon discharge. In residential living, emphasis is placed on making choices that work not only for the individual but for others as well. Students learn that their actions not only affect their lives but the lives of others in the group. Through this process a student becomes more aware of how his/her choices have influenced and impacted others in his/her life.

Critical Success Factors

While every individual is different, there are a few critical factors for helping us to successfully reach the goal of change of heart, and to heal your child, and your family.

1. Length of Stay. One of the key questions we hear is "How long will this take?" Often times, parents get excited early in the process when their child begins to change, behaviorally. This change, however, is not permanent, it is just the beginnings of learning how to act, and react to the world around them. Young people who are pulled from the program while still in this phase will likely not reach the true change needed for a permanent life change; the change of heart. After 43 Years of helping young people and their families, experience has proven that a minimum stay of about ten months is required to work through the phases of change. Some problems take longer. Arriving at a state in life that requires an intervention does not occur in a few days or a few months. Reversing those effects, likewise, takes time, patience and love.
2. Family Involvement. In most cases, young people are struggling not just with their personal lives, but in their relationships and within the scope of their family and friends. Changing the young person is not enough, the environment must change with him or her as well. Most importantly, the largest support structure (the family) must change with the young person so that, together, wounds are healed, communications methods are established, and a loving, caring relationship is the result. Without honest change from all of the key parties involved (primarily the family), the chance of long-term change is reduced. However, with dedicated effort from the parents and family, and with the appropriate length of stay, the likelihood of permanent change is extremely high.