Parents who consider sending their children to treatment for a mental health condition or substance misuse are often concerned about the impact of such a decision on their children’s education. Their kids are most likely already struggling at school and they fear taking them out of school and sending them to Turning Winds will interrupt the compromised academic career even more.
At Turning Winds, their children will catch up academically while also receiving treatment services. Academic excellence is one of our “Five Pillars of Change.” As a residential treatment center with a strong academic curriculum, Turning Winds offers a full continuum of care for teens with mental health issues while they also progress in their school curriculum. Our clients achieve success through a combination of therapeutic and educational approaches that provide the best possible outcomes.
At Turning Winds, we believe that creating relationships is key to success in life. We challenge each student to achieve personal excellence in academics and communication as they become self-directed and continue on their path of growth and achievement.
Students enrolled at Turning Winds experience an individualized academic experience. Our data show that our students earn an average GPA of 3.5 while here, and in a typical 12-month time period our average student completes about 1.5-2 years of school while experiencing an increase in GPA of almost a full letter grade over their GPA before coming to Turning Winds.
This is primarily the result of a concerted team effort explains science teacher Cathy Miller. “We work as a team and we’re actually a really excellent team. We meet every day, and we talk about the issues of each student, and we talk about our personal challenges as teachers. The concept of Turning Winds is teamwork.”
A FRESH START
The process of learning itself can be powerfully therapeutic. The mindful pursuit of education can relate to all areas of life. At Turning Winds, educators help students see parallels between the rigors of academic life and the pursuit of a meaningful personal life.
“We’re not just talking about grades on a paper,” says Miller. “We’re talking about emotional stability, goals for the future, making sure that academically they are where they are supposed to be, and planning where they’re going to go when they leave Turning Winds.”
“We think it’s really important for the parents to continue to be involved in the education process,” says Miller. “We have regular parent-teacher conferences. Parents send me emails or we can talk right on the phone about progress or what’s happening.”
Miller views Turning Winds as an opportunity for a young person to do over their life. “They made some pretty poor decisions—not because the parents didn’t do a good job but they made some poor decisions. They got stuck in a trap and they come here and they get a chance to be separated from everything that influenced them in the wrong direction and start over again and in the process of hopefully at least a year they get to be freed up from those things that were drawing them down.”
Turning Winds provides a variety of teaching and learning opportunities such as experiential learning, leadership development, career planning, field trips, technology integration, as well as additional educational activities and resources that we integrate to support student learning.
A good education is important for personal growth and future employment. It can help students improve their self-image and self-confidence and offer different tools for problem-solving. It can stimulate mental agility and help make good life decisions.
At Turning Winds, the goal is to make sure that each and every student gets the education and support they need for success. We work closely with the counseling departments in every student’s previous school to fill in any gaps in their current educational path.
Over more than twenty 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.
