I know someone out there has to know of a place that will accept difficult teens from families that are not wealthy. Any state in the U.S. Don’t care if it’s religion based or not. ANYTHING. My son was adopted by me several years ago and I have done everything I can to help him. There is no assistance from the state. Please help. I’ll readily accept any suggestions.
You sound pretty desperate jmb. I live in a area with many such wilderness schools. To really be able to help you, more information would be needed. If you’d like to keep it private for some reason, feel free to e-mail me. My address is in my profile.
I don’t know what you actually mean by affordable. Such programs offer 24 hour care by professionals. Even the least expensive ain’t gonna be cheap.
E3
I used to work for this organization in Albuquerque, NM: Hogares, Inc. There are places like it in every state, but it can be very difficult to place a teen, since resources are always limited.
You might try contacting the United Way in your area, or the juvenile justice system in your state. Look up “Social Services” in your Yellow Pages for a start, or call your state’s child welfare office to inquire. Call your child’s school counselor or principal to see if they have any suggestions for you. Persistence is key, but if you can find someone to become your advocate (and a great number of people in the social services field are there because they truly do want to help people in need), they can often help you through the difficulties. You say you adopted your son “several years” ago - some states do offer some help for adoptive parents of older children who have persistent emotional problems. There are often resources available that aren’t well-publicized, just because demand is so great. Many programs have some kind of financial help available.
Do be careful about any program, especially “wilderness programs” that are far from where you live. Almost all families who resort to such programs are desperate, and some substandard or even dangerous organizations can escape the scrutiny that most caretakers undergo because parents want to believe they can help. Something is not always better than nothing in this case.
I’ve seen many, many very troubled teens who have come through that time and become successful, happy adults with the help of tenacious parents and good family and individual counseling. It is possible, but I know that it’s really difficult to see any light at the end of the tunnel when you’re first faced with the situation. Good luck with your son, and please let us know how you’re doing as time goes on.
Also ask the adoption agency that helped you adopt your son. They should have resources and referrals. You might even consider a temporary foster care situation.
Since you’re looking for suggestions rather than hard facts, I’ll move this thread to IMHO.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
Well, there are diferent programs out there that offer assistance for different levels of need (for the child) and income levels. What is your situation in this regard? How old is he and in what specific way is he being “difficult”?
My daughter was 15 or 16 at the time and was a troubled teen. I sent her to a program called OUTWARD BOUND. These programs are designed to teach the kids to be self sufficent, independant, socially acceptable, respectful, responsible individuals.
The program she was in was 6 weeks long but they have programs for shorter and longer durations. Family counseling is part of the “after care” program.
My daughters program was wilderness themed. She paddled a canoe every day for 12 hours a day through alligator infested waters. Ran a mile a day. In her group of kids they took turns being responsible for cooking, using the map, setting up camp, etc…
The program taught her a lot. She is 22 now and still has memories of camp.
OUTWARD BOUND is all over the United States. The have a different theme in different places.
The cost is a little high but is worth it.
Call 1-800-555-1212 and ask for the OUTWARD BOUND closest to you.
Good Luck
It would help to know where you are. State would suffice.
Many boarding schools offer scholarships, partial and complete. I know, I went on a scholarship. One place to start looking is the National Association of Independent Schools - www.nais.org There are several ways of sorting the schools.
I must add a plea that you select a program that caters to problem students or his particular problem. As both a faculty member and student, when a “problem child” is sent to a boarding school that is not equipped to deal with him/her, it can become a disaster that makes everyone miserable.
Thank you to all who have offered suggestions. I am following up on every lead in an effort to find a school or facility.
I am located in Illinois. I run an alternative ed. program for violent teens. My son is not violent, (he was not in my program)but cannot be trusted. He is more a passive, sneaky-type individual. He is currently with the juvenile dept of corrections here, where he was placed due to my urging, based on a stealing incident that occurred. This was his first time in trouble with the authorities, but I was unable to locate other options at the time, so felt DOC was the best choice temporarily.
He is charming, attractive and intelligent, but entirely untrustworthy.
There is no help available from the state.
Have you looked in the back advertising section in Sunset magazine? A number of schools for troubled teens are advertised there.
I second InternetLegend’s warning to be careful of wilderness programs or out-of-country programs. The following program struck me as creepy (warning, long):
There must be ways to check out any program in advance.
I am guessing that by saying “the state can’t help” that you mean financially. There have got to be resources in IL, referrals and programs, etc. There must be a foster care system, social workers, adolescent mental health care (often through a University hospital, and sometimes covered by health insurance, though you might have to fight for that). There is an organization called “Parents of Behaviorally Different Children” that might be able to help you with referrals. Not sure what their website URL is, but you should be able to find it.
Wilderness schools accept troubled teens. There are many reputable wilderness schools here in the U.S. that does not cost a lot. Try asking your community about it.
There are military schools in lots of places–I’m thinking of one in Albuquerque. They don’t necessarily seek troubled teens, but a lot of them end up there. Most of these schools have scholarships, but you have to contact the individual school to see what the process is.
Outward Bound is usually a wilderness program, not a year-round or even school-year-long boarding school, but it has a great reputation. Some other wilderness type programs don’t. Expensive, and I’m not sure about scholarships.
My city used to have a summer program for teens where they went out into the wilderness areas and did useful things like working on trails and removing non-native plants that threatened the ecosystem. It was free through the local parks program. In addition to doing helpful stuff they also swam, learned card games, and apparently had a pretty great time. It was a series of week-long programs so some kids did multiple weeks. I know a lot of cities, including mine, have cut back on this type of program–which was instigated to keep teens out of trouble, and worked pretty well. But you never know until you ask, and this one wasn’t well publicized.
Hilarity N. Suze:
You’ve been here long enough–oh, about as long as this thread has been dormant–and should know better than to resurrect a zombie. Locking down.
ETA: My sincere apologies to HNS. Consider the wet noodle I was whipping you with to be properly retracted.
Alma, welcome to the boards. I see you have just joined, so you may not be aware that we prefer not to have old threads like this, which we call zombies, to resurrected. But it’s usually fine with us if you start a new thread on the same topic, and provide a link to the old one if you want to address the points therein. Exceptions to this would be when the old thread was closed on account of some rules violation, if the new thread were just an attempt to continue the violation.
And now once again with the wooden stake.