Staying on Track: At Aspen Achievement Academy Troubled Teens Can Get Help without Skipping School

It's a tough issue. If your teen is struggling with at-risk behaviors like substance abuse, manipulative or aggressive behavior, chronic lack of motivation or low self-esteem, getting help for him or her can't necessarily wait until the end of the school year – or the next vacation week. But taking him/her out of school might make the situation worse, right?

Not necessarily. Many therapeutic programs integrate academic curricula with the treatment troubled teens need. At Aspen Achievement Academy, that integrated approach involves combining a fully licensed academic program with a licensed accredited and internationally recognized wilderness therapy program.

Using the same healing outdoor environment as the wilderness program, Aspen Achievement Academy's educational curriculum integrates academic study with each teen's personal journey towards responsible young adulthood. To help ensure they are academically on track when they return home, students can earn up to 1 Utah educational credit (equal to 10 California credits), transferable to their home school.

Classes in English, Social Studies, General Science and Physical Education, all taught in the outdoor classroom, provide direction for each teen's wilderness experience. Recognized by the Utah State Board of Education as a special alternative school designed to effectively reach students at risk, classes are fully integrated into the therapeutic treatment program and are designed to support a teen's individual therapy goals.

Because Aspen Achievement Academy's open enrollment policy allows teens to enter the program as soon as they need to (without waiting for a new term to begin), students begin their academic work immediately upon arrival with a 'survivor's handbook' designed to teach personal care and safety. Students then join an established group of teens and begin participating in daily academic classes and activities, from geology lessons studying nearby rock strata to astronomy classes under clear night skies.

Since none of Aspen Achievement Academy's classes have no academic pre-requisites, each student has the opportunity to work at his/her own pace, using the diverse natural setting and healing wilderness environment to regain personal confidence and a positive attitude towards learning in the process.

How to Talk Yourself Into Helping Your Teen

If you are like most parents, you will go along with your child until the substance abuse reaches a crisis such as a car accident, an unplanned pregnancy, or police involvement. Many parents allow excuses to continue until their teenagers flunk out of college, sink into the street drug sub-culture, or become full-fledged alcoholics. Learn how to talk yourself into helping your child.

Early Interventions Can Save Teens from Chronic Alcoholism to Drug Addiction

Many alcoholics or drug addicts who enter addiction treatment programs do so because they "bottom out." Bottoming out means their lives have spun so out of control that they finally admit to themselves that they have a problem. Learn what "early intervention" means and why it’s so important.

Learning Disabilities Linked to Teen Drinking and Drug Abuse

Some promising studies indicate that teenagers with undiagnosed learning disabilities drink or abuse drugs because they are depressed, lonely, and suffer from low self-esteem. Low self-esteem is often a result of being unable to make friends and academic failure: problems that result from undiagnosed learning disabilities. Read more to find out which came first: the learning disability or the addiction?

Topics:

Drug Rehab
Addiction Treatment Centers
Substance Abuse Treatment
Recovery Programs