What is a Therapeutic Boarding School?
The definition of a therapeutic boarding school is, “A therapy-based program where school-aged children attend group and individual therapy sessions while keeping up with academic work as required by the Department of Education.” Therapeutic boarding schools (TBS) are residential schools designed to treat a host of issues including anxiety, depression, relationship problems, and more. The focus of therapeutic boarding schools is troubled teenagers. Teen girls are rehabilitated socially and academically in therapeutic boarding schools, heading off major issues before adulthood.
The admissions criteria of a Therapeutic Boarding School are generally stricter than in a Residential Treatment Center (RTC). That is because RTC’s usually take teens with more severe issues. RTC’s are better equipped to handle teens that are suicidal, need restraints, or intensive medical interventions.
Many students at therapeutic boarding schools have unique challenges. Students are served alongside peers with similar emotional, social, or behavioral challenges. Therapeutic boarding schools like Evangelhouse Christian Academy help troubled teens grow into the young adult they strive to be.
Evangelhouse Christian Academy is well known for its emphasis on therapy. We give our girls an opportunity to fully address their concerns and to help them discover a new way of life while renewing their relationship with God.
While all of the girls have come to Evangelhouse Christian Academy to heal, their diagnoses may not necessarily be the same. Together, girls form social bonds based on common recovery goals. In what we call a “positive peer culture” students at Evangelhouse learn to interact in a positive way. Discussion of inappropriate topics, or discussing something harmful in a positive way, is highly discouraged by the group.
Evangelhouse Christian Academy’s therapeutically diversified setting treats a wide spectrum of issues. Due to our therapeutic setting and focus on positive peer culture, your daughter will be able to let go of her unhealthy identification in this atmosphere and instead identify with others and herself based on her talents. Qualified staff such as licensed therapists will help your daughter identify the root of her issues.
Serving Troubled Girls from Pennsylvania
The unique setting at Evangelhouse provides a safe community that we believe allows our students to grow and study. In our community, we eliminate many of the outside world’s stressors that can hinder our residents from performing well academically and feeling well emotionally. Many of the stressors in our outside world may create overwhelming situations for our teens that are difficult to cope with. In the interest of fostering beneficial change in our teenage girls, we help them to develop coping strategies.
Milieu Therapy at Evangelhouse Christian Academy
The main goal of Milieu treatment programming is to eliminate the stressors that can trigger negative emotions from our teenage residents. In turn, when we achieve de-risking of our residents, we produce a therapeutic setting. Under the protection of a controlled therapeutic setting, our residents are able to develop new coping mechanisms. These new coping mechanisms become their personal set of tools to better cope with and understand the world. As our residents become more familiar with the routine at Evangelhouse, their ability to feel safe increases. Likewise, in a mutually safe environment, the peer group is able to build trust and make great progress in promoting emotional growth within each individual.
There are many advantages to participating in Milieu therapy. One advantage is that our teenagers learn to accept responsibility for their own actions. Another advantage is that they learn how to open up and disclose their difficulties. Our peer group receives regular feedback during therapy and this allows our residents to observe how their actions affect the community. This therapy setting offers them time to process and reflect on the consequences of the actions or decisions they have made in the past and how they can improve moving forward.
At Evangelhouse, our residents will participate in milieu therapy and gain coping skills that will help them in the real world.