Therapeutic Wilderness Schools - Any Insights?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My dd was in an FCPS CSS program and when a child was having a meltdown, a staff member tried to restrain him and broke his leg.

FCPS was in serious legal trouble for routinely locking kids in closets and hiding the fact that it was happening.

How can anyone trust FCPS with their child after incidents like those? Or any public school, for that matter?

I think you are trying to be tongue in cheek, but I will respond in earnest.

FCPS is highly regulated. When something horrible is exposed, there are consequences.

RTCs have virtually no state regulation and absolutely zero Federal regulation.

There are more than 200k kids sent to these places each year.

They are profit machines for corporate America, not mental health facilities. Until there is substantial oversight, one should proceed with extreme caution.

Wrong. Bad sh!t happens to kids with SNs in FCPS schools and FCPS-placements (private day schools) all the time. Rarely does anyone have consequences. Even a serious lawsuit didn't have any actual consequences for any staff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:bad treatment is worse than no trearment. obviously. the fact that you keep on engaging in this logical fallacy makes me doubt your truthfulness, maybe to yourself as well. clearly you believe that wilderness therapy actually worked for your particular child. if so, name the program, how they provide therepeutic and medicsl services, how long your child was there, and what your child is doing now. what I am saying is that the industry is full of abuse and bad actors. that doesn’t preclude there being good residential programs that use outdoor activities therepeutically in an appropriate way. so explain it, or not. but you can’t rebut the lengthy and horrific documented history of wilderness “therapy” just by saying “we had no other choice!!!

Wow I can't believe how much this discussion was run off the rails by the anti-wilderness brigade astroturfing the discussion. Comments like these have nothing substantial to add.

Dismissing other's real-life experiences and saying over and over again that wilderness programs aren't therapeutic doesn't make it so. You'll notice that posters who've commented on their positive experiences with these places have given nuanced opinions of these places, acknowledged they're not for everyone, acknowledged that finding a good program took a lot of work and research - but have noted that intensive therapy, psychiatry, and doctors when needed were all part of the experience.

Sea ottering and demanding posters entertain your bad-faith arguments and name therapeutic programs so you can dismiss them outright isn't constructive or a good use of anyone's time.

You might want too read this article about how there is scant evidence (and what is there is funded by these programs) on whether Wilderness even works at all.

https://www.hcn.org/articles/wilderness-do-wilderness-therapy-programs-really-work


“It’s hard to make a case for spending a lot of money on a program for which there is no strong evidence,” says John Weisz, a professor of psychology at Harvard University who specializes in mental health interventions for children and adolescents. “From the state of the evidence that I’ve seen, we really don’t know whether wilderness therapy has beneficial effects or not,” he added.

CAVEAT EMPTOR.

The problem with academics like this is they don't understand the real world situations parents of mentally ill children find themselves in. THERE IS NO HELP. Even somewhere like the DC area, there is no help for mentally ill kids who are resistant to treatment. My friend's dd was in and out of the ER and short term inpatient stays, then sat at home on a waitlist for a PHP for four months. She was admitted, stayed a few hours, then walked out of the PHP and they weren't allowed to legally stop her. She was missing for two days. Then the PHP wouldn't take her back, nor would any other local PHP, because one of their requirements is that the child is willing to be treated. But the child wasn't in immediate danger, so she couldn't go back into the hospital.

so, Paris Hilton fan, this is your kid. Your move. Tell me about all the local evidence-based therapeutic resources you would find for her.

This is my kid, too. Which is why I have such a strong opinion about it.

Mental health support sucks, that we can agree on.

I think the future will be in Wraparound Care, which tries to keep and serve the child in the community. I see the changes already. A few years ago there was only one intense DBT program in this area for kids, and now there are several.

https://www.wraparoundmd.org/care_coordination.asp

We were offered a service like this through the Fairfax CSB. It sounds nice, but they had very few providers and the reimbursements were so low that the people who were available were completely worthless.

[Anonymous]

And, I will add, the child/client had to be cooperative and willing to participate. Which raises the same issue yet again.

[Anonymous]

DBT providers will only accept clients who are on board with participating.