As a leader in wilderness therapy for teens and adolescents, the Trails Carolina Family Program has created a diverse and inclusive family program that engages the entire family. It teaches new skills to parents and family members to facilitate sustained positive change while encouraging familial growth.
What is the Trails Carolina Family Program?
The Trails Carolina Family Program is an integral part of the Wilderness Therapy Program’s success. That’s because Trails Carolina understands that family involvement improves the outcome for students. It benefits everyone involved, and there is usually a positive change in the household while the student is attending Trails Carolina and after they return home.
Parents can expect to have a weekly call with a family therapist to support them in making changes. These calls help parents understand their child’s behavior and create strategies for healthy communication. Parents also receive a weekly call with their child’s therapist to track progress and challenges.
There are also other training and support sessions offered to parents. A parent skills workshop is held to prepare parents with the necessary toolkit to improve their relationship with their children. Trails Carolina also offers weekly zoom classes for families on meditation/yoga and mindfulness.
For an even more in-depth bonding and familial growth experience, Trails Carolina has the “Common Ground” four-day extended stay. The whole family stays together in a beautiful home where they can start putting into practice all of the new communication skills they’ve learned. This is extremely beneficial in helping students transition back to everyday life.
All of these sessions are to facilitate familial growth and encourage parental growth alongside their child to strengthen the family unit. The Trails Carolina Family Program is a collaborative effort between the students, families, therapeutic team, and aftercare providers.
What Was the Trails Carolina Family Program Built to Achieve?
The main purpose of Trails Carolina is to address the “whole child.” This is done in a number of ways: through providing new skills to students in different environments and also actively including parents and caregivers.
The program was founded in 2008 and is set in the serene North Carolina Mountains. Over the years, this Wilderness Therapy Program has proven to demonstrate a good track record in changing troubled behavior and helping to heal families.
This was done by incorporating a comprehensive educational family inclusion program. The workshops and therapy sessions are designed to specifically address each family’s needs. By equipping parents as well as students, it leads to long-lasting success and improved behavior when the student returns home.
The Trails Carolina family support and training empowers parents and caregivers to help their children transition back to their “real” lives. Students also have to put in the effort, of course, because the true success of this program is how holistic the change has been across the entire family.
What Does The Success Rate Look Like In Numbers?
The figures that Trails Carolina tracks demonstrate what a positive impact the program has on students and families. It’s not just Trails Carolina reporting success either because the academy has partnered with the University of Arkansas to study the outcome from an objective point of view.
The Trails Carolina family program truly helps these children. One of the highest-ranking scores was a reduction of suicidal thoughts in 98% of students, a staggering result. Reducing depression is also hugely successful, with 93% of students showing an improvement in symptoms 12 months after graduation.
There are also vast improvements seen in anxiety levels, reduction in substance use, and ADHD symptoms. These positive shifts help these students return home and to their everyday lives with more confidence, optimism, and enthusiasm for school.
