Our time-tested curriculum is designed to help your child realize that the choices they are making are detrimental to their own well being and creating chaos within your family. We work with your child to focus on their behavior patterns and the issues behind them. ASCENT achieves this by combining emotional growth, meaningful work, physical challenge, therapeutic guidance and clinical assessment.
Our curriculum is delivered in a simple, purposeful, and highly structured environment. It is designed to allow your child's issues to be addressed individually, yet the structured routine of the program is unaffected by individual or group behaviors.
ASCENT's curriculum is divided into four phases:
Click Here for Curriculum Chart
Click Here for a "typical day at Ascent"
Orientation: Awareness of Self
Each child begins his or her program in Orientation. In this phase, children work on identifying problem behaviors and their underlying issues. Orientation encourages your child to ask the question, "What do I do and why do I do it?" in reference to their behavior and actions.
Orientation includes:
- Introduction to the program
- Adjustment to the environment
- Clinical assessment and treatment planning
- Assessment of physical and medical issues
- Adherence to ASCENT agreements
- Awareness of coping skills, behavior patterns and personal issues
- Start of exercise program
Pre-Course: Responsibility for Actions
This phase encourages children to answer the question, "Now that I'm aware. What do I do next?" and to understand what it means to take responsibility for their behaviors. Your child will learn to express themselves within their group and complete tasks that prepare them for the backpacking course.
Pre-Course includes:
- Trust-building
- Developing communication skills
- Problem solving
- Exploring of personal issues within a group
- Developing Course goals
- Increasing exercise
- Developing outdoor skills
- Learning to work with others
- Experiencing guided communication with family
Course: Experimentation with New Behaviors
This phase encourages children to ask the question, "What new tools can I experiment with to achieve better results?" Your child will use the secure environment of their Course group as a mirror to see their own behaviors and will feel comfortable in taking personal risks by experimenting with new tools such as self-reliance. Your child will naturally learn the value of self-reliance as they cook their own food at the campfire and prepare their own shelter.
Course includes:
- Two-week backpacking experience
- Interacting within a small group
- Moving from staff direction to group direction
- Using new skills to solve old problems
- Pushing past self-imposed limits
- Understanding group interdependence
- Achieving and experiencing success
- Climbing the Alpine Tower™
Transition: Transfer of New Skills and Roles
After returning from the Course backpacking experience, children enter the Transition phase. In this phase, your child will work on the question "How do I take what I have learned with me?" Their task is to begin to apply new skills and tools to their lives and prepare for the next step after ASCENT. Along with doing a great deal of personal reflection, children in this phase also mentor Orientation and Pre-Course children. They become leaders at base camp and share their experience with their peers.
Transition includes:
- Developing an individual plan for success
- Outlining transition agreements
- Developing a support resources list
- Establishing leadership role with new students
- Participation in a Family Workshop
- Graduation
You can begin the process quickly and easily with our four-step pre-approval
Easy Enroll Application
Easy Enroll
