Summer is a beautiful time of year to be in New England. Longer days and warmer weather make it possible to explore different parts of our field area while our students are out on their weekly “expos.” During the summer months, our adventure therapy programming expands to include canoeing! Rather than always going out to […]
by Will White, DA, LCSW, MLADC CSW, MLADC Over 25 years ago, I was part of the team that started Summit Achievement, the country’s first hybrid model wilderness therapy program. Before joining Summit, I practiced as a licensed mental health professional in various organizations, including an outpatient mental health clinic, boarding school, hospital, public […]
By Mike DeLuca, LCSW Since the days of vision quests in the wild by First Nation youth, or much later in the 1960s when the Colorado Outward Bound School first started using wilderness to foster resiliency, character, and compassion in American youth, humans have sought out wild places for catalysts for change and transformation. Why does […]
Anxiety is challenging for young people and their families and Summit Achievement is here to help. We know that many productive, engaged, and happy children can become withdrawn and sullen to the point of not being able to leave their house or their rooms by the time they reach their teens due to anxiety and […]
Summit Achievement has been continuously operating in the White Mountains of Maine and New Hampshire since 1996. The program has a long history of helping troubled teens and their families find success in every season. It can be seen as a challenge to have a young person attend a wilderness treatment program in winter, but […]
Summit Achievement has had an academic component since it started operations in 1996. The impetus, at that time, was that one of the co-founders was working as a psychotherapist at a Northeast Boarding School and counseled many students who had gone to wilderness programs before enrolling at the school. He observed that many of those […]
Summit Achievement has achieved being one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious accredited programs for struggling teens by providing our students and their families with high-quality treatment, challenging academics, and outdoor experiences. At times we are asked if we “scare straight troubled teens.” We use the term “struggling teens“ versus “troubled teens” as we […]
On a regular bases the Summit admissions team is asked, “Are you like Outward Bound?” Our response is “Yes and no”. HOW SUMMIT ACHIEVEMENT AND OUTWARD BOUND ARE SIMILAR We respond “Yes” as Outward Bound and Summit Achievement combine experiential education and outdoor education programs to help young people create change in their lives. Both organizations are […]
Most of us imagine wilderness therapy to be weeks in the woods. Often, if “academic courses” are offered, they are facilitated in an environment that is far from the formal school and classroom experience and often do not align with a student’s course and credit needs. Journaling around a campfire, exploring flora and fauna along […]