Program Overview
Ridge Creek Wilderness is a 28 day clinically integrated, outdoor leadership program that combines intensive cognitive-based therapeutic work with wilderness training and adventure.
The therapeutic components are facilitated by full-time Master’s level counselors who are either clinically licensed, or receive formal clinical supervision on a weekly basis. Our professional staff provides a seamless integration of the therapeutic and the outdoor leadership curricula.
Counseling and staff members are immediately available to the field sites working with the wilderness instructors to further develop and individualize student plans. A structured sequential therapeutic model is utilized that allows for in-depth clinical assessment, and treatment customization. Students and their counselors remain together for the entire length of the program in order to develop deep levels of safety and trust within the group
Challenges and Teamwork
We challenge students with activities that stretch their perceived limits of physical endurance and take students out of their comfort zones through courses in field skills, mountaineering, map- reading, land navigation, physical fitness and environmental science, as well as medical and leadership training. Physical deprivation is never used. Through these challenges, we develop team work and camaraderie among the students, an enhanced self-concept, and foster individual leadership skills. At the end of each day, students are exhausted but have an innate sense of accomplishment.
During the program students are counseled on their attitude, behavioral impact on the group, and understanding their fears and impulsive, reckless behavior. Students learn personal responsibility…and with it a sense of achievement and a desire to improve their lives.
Who is this program for?
Ridge Creek Wilderness students represent a broad spectrum of adolescent struggles, ranging from those simply needing to re-focus, to those experiencing significant behavioral difficulties. The majority of students exhibit behaviors that fit the profile of Oppositional Defiant Disorder, though they do not have to be diagnosed as such.
Ridge Creek Wilderness students may struggle with issue of authority, and adolescent adjustment. They may exhibit a pattern of negative, hostile, and oppositional defiant behavior.
These students loose their temper, argue, actively defy, or refuse to comply with adults’ rules or requests. They will deliberately ignore people, blame others for their mistakes or misbehaviors, are touchy and easily annoyed by others. They may also appear angry, resentful, spiteful, or vindictive. These behaviors significantly impair social, academic or occupational functioning.