Island View

Island View private boarding school for troubled teens is fully accredited by the Utah Department of Education, the California Department of Education and the Northwest Association of Accredited Schools.

Therapy

Island View offers specialized psychotherapeutic services involving one-on-one counseling plans and group sessions. The therapeutic focus is on reality testing, behavior, emotional expression, and interpersonal relationships. In addition, individual therapy addresses issues and concerns that students would not want to deal with in a group setting. Formal group sessions are held in a small group format two to three times per week, while therapist driven Process and Problem Solving Groups are held weekly.

Family Therapy is provided by the resident’s primary therapist and is an integral part of the resident’s comprehensive treatment. The road leading to residential placement of a teenager is often paved with pain, disappointment, fear, guilt and feelings of helplessness. For that reason, residential treatment does not only involve the child but his or her family in the process of change. Thus, all residents and their families are involved in weekly family therapy either at the Center, via conference telephone calls, or coordinated by the Center in the resident’s home community. Quarterly Parent Seminars are hosted on the Island View campus with regional Parent Seminars offered on a regular basis in different areas around the country.

Speciality Groups

Specialty groups meet weekly and are facilitated by therapists with masters or doctoral degrees. All groups employ a variety of clinical interventions. Group composition is open-ended, allowing for residents to move between one or more groups while at Island View.

Chemical Abuse/Dependency

Many adolescents use chemicals for a variety of reasons that may include self-medication, recreational usage, peer pressure, defiance, and others. Many of the Island View residents are not chemically addicted in the clinical sense but are psychologically dependent. Residents identified through a thorough assessment process are enrolled in the chemical dependency track, where an experienced, certified addiction counselor provides weekly or biweekly groups and biweekly individual sessions depending upon resident need. A multi-model approach incorporating the 12-step recovery process, cognitive restructuring and relapse prevention planning is utilized along with regular family involvement. A weekly on-campus AA meeting is also provided.

Grief and Loss

This group deals with unresolved grief by youth who may have lost a loved one, experienced a highly contentious family break-up or other such events that have had a significant impact.

Art Therapy

Using various mediums, art therapy is primarily offered to youth who may be “therapeutically stuck” in terms of expressing feelings or connecting with others.

Adoption Group

A wide array of issues are addressed in this coeducational group. Questions related to birth parents, self worth, sibling rivalry, identity, etc. are covered in an interactive format.

Emotional Regulation

Residents who struggle to handle intense emotions are helped to develop increased awareness of underlying issues propelling feelings such as anger or anxiety and then to proactively deal with them.

Men’s Issues

Utilizing a variety of intervention techniques including experiential education, this group provides a forum where sensitive issues related to past abuse and confusion over the male roles in life are addressed.

Women’s Issues

Much like the men’s issues group, this group is designed for young women struggling to define themselves as well as understand traumatic issues they may have experienced.

Coed Group

Sexual stereotypes, relationships, cooperative play, appropriate dating, and other social issues are part of the Coed Group that prepares youth who will soon leave Island View to lead a better young adult life.

Social Skills

This group is designed to assist residents who struggle to read and respond effectively to social cues when interacting in a variety of settings. Residents learn how to be more effective in relationships and with their own self advocacy and emotional expression.

Recreation

Recreation is a matter of choice. These choices are made based on expected results, whether that is fun, challenge, learning, improved health, relaxation, or others. The teenage years have always been a time to experiment. Often, that experimentation involves unhealthy recreation which is attractive to teenagers because it may be new, taboo, exciting, and doesn’t require a lot of forethought. The recreation program at Island View opens up doors to healthy forms of recreation. Certified fitness instructors implement cardiovascular and strength training activities six days a week. Students measure their improvement in strength and endurance through performance tests conducted every twelve weeks. Connections are made between regular, healthy levels of exercise and more stable mental health. Island View offers a myriad of other recreational activities as well. From skiing Utah’s “best snow on earth” and rafting whitewater in Wyoming to bowling with friends and eating out, students are exposed to healthy forms of recreation. And we emphasize learning skills that maintain those interests in the future, whether it be reading a map to find a theatre or doing the math to tip the guide.

Island View’s activity program is carefully integrated with other “food groups.” What may be difficult to accomplish in a formal therapy session or in a challenging math class may meet far less resistance if it comes on the heels of a successful completion of a high ROPES initiative course or finishing a two day hike in the red rock of Southern Utah.

Licenses & Accreditation

Island View Residential Treatment Center is licensed or accredited with the following agencies and organizations:

• Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO)
• Utah Department of Human Services, Department of Licensure
• Utah State Board of Education
• California Department of Education as a Non-Public School
• Northwest Association of Accredited Schools
• National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs

Please call our 24-hours admissions helpline for more information: 877-830-7020