Summit Achievement’s Continuum of Care
The Summit Achievement Continuum of Care Model works with adolescents ages 13-20, dealing with mental and behavioural health challenges, substance use and experiencing difficulty within their family, school, and/or personal lives. The focus is on long-term success and lasting change by integrating diverse elements of care in a residential treatment setting that include adventure expeditions, clinical sophistication, strong classroom academics, family systems work, all aimed at helping adolescents develop life skills, emotional regulation, and the ability to thrive independently.
Since Summit Achievement was founded in 1996, it has been considered a variety of things from a wilderness therapy program, a hybrid model, and sometimes even known as two programs. So let’s clear the air on just what Summit Achievement is! In short, we are a one stop shop for primary treatment to transition, with 90% of our clients leaving our continuum and going to a lower level of care (most often home or boarding school)
Summit Achievement is a Continuum of Care:
There are two phases to our continuum that students can move seamlessly through, living on the same campus, working with the same direct care staff, teachers and therapist through the entire continuum to leverage strong relationships that remain consistent as the demands of the program and the work change.
Our outcome data shows that clients who do our entire continuum do better at discharge, six months after discharge and one year after discharge than clients who do our primary intervention alone. Students can complete our entire continuum in as short as 14 weeks. Length of stay is of course client dependent and some students are with us for 6-8 months,
What are the two phases of our Continuum?
Achievement
So let’s talk about Summit Achievement – it is a Primary intervention where students typically come from home, a hospital, boarding school etc. Summit Achievement combines the impactful adventure activities found in outdoor education programs with clinical sophistication, and a strong academic program and therapeutic community usually featured in therapeutic boarding schools or RTC’s.
The Summit Achievement experience looks like this:
- 4 nights on campus
- 3 nights per week camping
- Weekly family, individual and group sessions
- Overnight visit with parents
- Weekly Parent coaching
- Discharge planning
- 6-10 weeks
Traverse
Summit Traverse is a secondary intervention where students generally come from Achievement, a wilderness therapy program, or another program (such as Turnbridge, Newport, Polaris or similar), where the treatment team believes that it is possible the student could be successful in a traditional setting (home or boarding school)in 6 months (or less) with continued treatment. Summit Traverse is an innovative, flexible-length therapeutic boarding school, which combines family-centered therapeutic services, accredited classroom academics, and a rich residential life curriculum. We accept students who have successfully completed a primary treatment program and need help in transitioning back home or to a traditional boarding school.
The Summit Traverse experience looks like this:
- 7 nights on campus
- Weekend activities
- Weekly family, individual and group sessions
- Weeklong home visits
- Parent coaching
- Discharge planning
- 2-6 months
If your teenager is struggling with their mental health and you are considering treatment options, perhaps Summit Achievement could be right for your family. Reach out to Admissions today.