Christian Therapeutic Academy for Girls from Pennsylvania

We are a Christian Therapeutic Academy for girls from Pennsylvania and across the entire United States. We enroll girls from all over the US and international enrollments from 5 countries and counting! We have many students from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and surrounding areas.

The Evangelhouse therapeutic boarding school was established in 1995 to serve Christian families with a quality residential treatment option for troubled teen girls from Pennsylvania and beyond.  Evangelhouse pioneered a treatment model that blends licensed behavioral healthcare with the structure of a traditional Christian boarding school.

Pennsylvania Stats on Therapeutic Academy Needs

•   39.8% of teen girls in Pennsylvania reported symptoms of anxiety or depression.
•   25.7% of teen girls in Pennsylvania were unable to get needed counseling or therapy.
•   In Pennsylvania, 447,000 adults have a serious mental illness.
•   98,000 Pennsylvanians age 12–17 have depression.
•   9.5 percent of teen girls engage in binge drinking.
•   10.3% of girls aged 3-17 years (approximately 4.4 million) have diagnosed anxiety or depression. Diagnoses of depression and anxiety in girls are more common with increased age.

When to Choose a Therapeutic Boarding School for Girls

Every therapeutic boarding school is different and has its own focus area. One of the main advantages of a therapeutic boarding school over typical group or individual therapy, even when combined with medication management, is the ability to see a student in her peer groups socializing and communicating naturally.

Under normal circumstances, a therapist has to completely rely on their patient to relay what is going on in their life. Therapists then naturally miss out on so much- nonverbal communication, events that the patient may be left out, and of course the other person’s side of the story.

In a therapeutic boarding school like Evangelhouse Christian Academy, therapists are there with their patients throughout the week. They eat, play, and communicate with the residents and other staff members alike. Also, we include teachers and program staff members in our treatment team meetings. This way, along with parental input, we get a full picture of what is going on with your child and how we can set them on a path to recovery.

Individual, family, and group therapy interventions are structured within the Evangelhouse Lifeleaf™ system. This state-of-the-art system challenges students to work beyond symptom improvement. This unique integrative approach leads students to maturity, insight, and self-awareness. The blend of Christian values and professional clinical psychotherapy includes:

• Professional assessment, diagnosis, and treatment planning
• Weekly individual therapy
• Weekly group therapy
• Parent and family therapy
• Weekly therapeutic emphasis groups
• Weekly DBT Therapy skills group
• The unique Evangelhouse stages of change system
• Experiential family therapy retreats
• EMDR Trauma Therapy is available as needed

If you have any questions about the program please call us at 1-800-924-4012 or visit our admission page.

Therapeutic Academy to Overcome Bullying

At Evangelhouse Christian Academy, we are an ideal environment to help teen girls learn how to overcome the trauma of being bullied. Cyberbullying has become a common topic in therapeutic research today. Being bullied online has surpassed bullying as the most common kind of harassment experienced by teen girls in the United States.

Teens can use Snapchat, Instagram, Tik Tok, and Twitter to communicate with one another and other positive identity development uses. That being said, being online can cause a lot of different problems for a variety of reasons. Social media has many positive uses, but its negatives can include low self-esteem due to constant comparison with others, feelings of being “ugly” or not having enough friends, and it also exposes young girls to being bullied online.

While peer pressure isn’t a new problem, being online and using social media apps has elevated it to new heights. Sexting, for example, is a big source of concern for many families. We provide a positive Christian environment where we seek to instill the core values girls today need.

At Evangelhouse, our girls develop character and build their relationship skills. As a result, they are able to act in a mature and responsible manner online when they transition back home. Instead of socializing online with no supervision, girls at Evangelhouse socialize in the therapeutic setting with counselors and other trained staff observing or participating in the conversation.

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.