SUWS Adolescent Program

The SUWS Adolescent Program is based on a search and rescue metaphor. We know that human beings need and want to contribute to a larger cause. At SUWS the search and rescue metaphor is the vehicle by which this is accomplished. From learning primitive-living skills to basic orienteering and first-aid techniques, students are personally challenged. In the midst of giving themselves, they find themselves.

The search and rescue curriculum includes first aid, map and compass use, and team response to emergencies. It is not our intent to train troubled teens to be search and rescue professionals, but rather to allow them to discover their inner strengths and value by becoming essential, functioning members of a team.

SUWS utilizes a phase system for the students that is designed to be challenging and rewarding. Each phase builds on the students learning more about themselves and becoming more independent. The names and descriptions of the phases are:

Orientation
Our orientation period for newly arriving students focuses on the safety of new students as they adjust to their new environment. The basics of self-care are introduced. We make a follow-up physical health assessment 48 hours after the student's initial physical. This is also an evaluative period to assess the student's emotional appropiateness to meet the program's design.

The goals are to introduce the program as a safe place to undertake challenge. The instructors establish that they will be resources for the student's growth, while also introducing the self-sufficiency the new student will need to carry forward in each progressive phase. A philosophy of inherent goodness and individual worth lies at the base of all staff/student interaction.

Individual
Individual Phase centers around a student's growing awareness of self as the immersion into the desert settles into reality. Instructors introduce a set of primitive skills. We provide a written workbook cirriculum to the student. The combination of environment, skills and cirriculum provide a tremendous assessment opportunity of the belief systems and behavior patterns that comprise the student's emerging identity.

The goals are to gain a deeper understanding of the underlying issues, identify and interrupt negative coping patterns, and create a desire for change.

Family
Family Phase focuses on practicing the healthy coping strategies learned in Individual Phase. As students learn the effect their behavior has on others, they develop communication skills that were lost or not well developed. They learn how position and authority are earned through the process of respect and willingness to take responsibility for the welfare of others. They take on goals at a group level and build interpersonal relationships.

As physical challenges are met, it becomes evident that they are more capable than previously believed. "If I can do this, I can do anything" has become the motto of Family Phase.

Venturer
Venturer Phase works on the use of self-awareness and relationship skills in the capacity of unconditional service toward others. It is during this phase that most students learn about future placement plans or direction. For therapeutic purposes, communication between the student and the outside world may expand to conference calls with parents, schools, etc., to help the student clarify his or her circumstances. Added communication is used to gather additional insights into family dynamics and to further empower the parents' obligation to take whatever steps are necessary for the good of the student and the family. Group initiatives, metaphors, and games are used to keep the morale and teamwork at progressive levels.

Explorer
Explorer Phase energetically delves into values clarification. The curriculum flows to utilizing innate gifts and talents and identifying what makes each person unique. The process of self-reflection begins with a personality profile to help students understand predispositions, innate strengths, and inherent weaknesses. The lessons then move toward building strength of character through interpersonal interactions. Respecting the views and values of others is key to this process, and students are primed to share their discoveries with peers.

Navigator
With a healthier self-image comes a desire to achieve new heights of empowerment to cope with the potential obstacles and inevitable pitfalls ahead. The SUWS curriculum lends itself to further exploration into human behavior and the ability to reason, strategize, and develop short- and long-term goals. Students learn acceptance of factors that limit choices and the value of focusing on what they have and taking advantage of the privileges they are afforded.

Service projects tailored to reinforce specific areas of personal development expand the students' positive reference experience. Students who succeed will carry their triumphs outside the highly structured SUWS environment.

Guide
The statement, "The teacher learns more than the student," applies as the student becomes a mentor to his or her peers. With a story to tell, the student shares personal emotional and physical encounters. Through leadership, the Guide walks on fertile soil, expanding his or her capacity to understand hidden truths in character and to use those strengths as an influence for good for others.

Solo
Going on a personal solo is something many of us wish we had time to do. A valuable component of a student's program is the completion of a solo. Time is spent reflecting on the past and focusing on building a more successful future. Solo is something that is earned, prepared for, and coincides with a student's therapeutic outcomes and goals. It is typically three days and two nights. Students are highly supervised by staff members who check on them a minimum of three times a day to ensure their safety. they are close in proximity to staff, but are asked to maintain an established physical boundary. Students are tasked with assignments, including journal and letter writing and skills mastery. A book is selected from the trail library and is usually chosen for the message it contains for each child.

Search and Rescue
When students go "on call" as a search and rescue team member, they are ready to give back both emotionally and physically to care for others in need, willing to sacrifice personal comforts and work as a team to conquer any stumbling blocks that may face them. They are prepared for this, and by completing this final step are preparing their future paces for the ultimate challenge--leaving the desert environment, which by now has come to mean personal safety, self-reliance, emotional growth, and home.

The team will be called upon to visit groups where new students may be struggling. Through sharing their own experiences, team members will offer hope and encouragement to others, while at the same time reaffirming to themselves the accomplishments they have made. They will also be tasked with a simulation that will require them to use their navigation skills to locate a "missing" person. Once found, they will conduct a physical assessment, treating all ailments that may be present.

Search and Rescue. Those words have come to mean a lot over the course of the past weeks. By earning the distinction of becoming a search and rescue team member, students have reached the culmination of service to self, family and the larger community at SUWS. The challenges and rewards have been great, worthwhile, and life changing. Our students are now prepared to go searching and rescuing in the world beyond. It is not the end; it is just the beginning.

The SUWS program challenges both mind and body, presenting both rigorous physical challenges and thought provoking, emotional growth promoting therapeutic exercises.

Education Credit
Students receive a new portion of their academic curriculum at the start of each phase. The completed curriculum contains philosophy, outdoor skills instruction, history and science lessons, journal assignments, and stories. Students may receive transferable credit from their local school district. SUWS provides parents with a grade sheet that allocates hours spent in specific school subjects (creative writing, healthy living, psychology of daily living, physical education, environmental science, first aid, and personal development). Parents simply need to turn in this grade sheet with the completed curriculum to their school counselor, who will have it assessed for academic credit. Many families have been successful in obtaining credit in this manner.

Excerpts from a Students's Journal

SUWS offers an effective troubled teen treatment program and troubled teen rehab treatment for teens and youth