Mount Bachelor Academy: A Therapeutic Boarding School

When I recently visited Mount Bachelor Academy in Central Oregon, I found a boarding school that has evolved over the past 20 years to become a highly therapeutic school/ community. Mount Bachelor Academy's therapeutic model could be described as an integrated community milieu. Which is to say that the whole structure, basic agreements, and traditions of the environment are part of the therapeutic process. Students are respected and open inquiry is encouraged.

As an educational environment, Mount Bachelor's dually accredited curriculum includes best practices standards, evidence based practices for students with ADD/ADHD, two full-time learning specialists, and every student receives an Individualized Academic Plan (IAP) to facilitate their learning whether the student has special learning needs or is taking college level courses. Students are assessed so the school can best facilitate their learning needs and help ensure their academic success. Students who present with co-morbid learning and drug/alcohol issues can have both addressed simultaneously.

Mount Bachelor Academy is certified in Adoption Clinical Training® and twenty-five staff members are all individually certified through Kinship Center to best serve adopted adolescents and their families. Knowledge of the Core Issues of Adoption and attachment spectrum issues and how to best assist students and families is integrated throughout the curriculum. Utilizing an evidence-based approach to helping, staff members employ a variety of non-verbal therapies to reach beyond what talk and insight can provide in the way of healing and change. This relational and humanistic approach emphasizes non-verbal therapies, mindfulness, and brain integration exercises. The experiential aspects of Mount Bachelor Academy inspire students to action from their passivity. Experiences are multidimensional rather than didactic. The therapeutic process becomes holistic involving the physical and affective in addition to cognitive interaction.

Evidence-based research in the area of neuroscience has informed and enriched the Mount Bachelor Academy curriculum in the form of mindfulness. Brief mindful meditation is utilized at the beginning of classes, group sessions, evening closings, and staff meetings to support attention, executive function, and brain development with students. Yoga classes are offered four times daily which help students regulate their emotions and develop focus.

Clinical services at Mount Bachelor Academy are overseen by a full-time licensed counselor who provides Individualized Strategy Plans for each student and oversight to nine Master's level counselors working with students and their families. Students with a history of drug and alcohol abuse are introduced to the evidence-based practice of a comprehensive and long-term approach to recovery. In addition, a licensed, full-time chemical dependency counselor assesses each student with drug and/or alcohol history, facilitates group sessions, and oversees NA/AA meetings.

Based on the research findings that outcomes for students are more sustainable when families are involved in the process, parents or guardians are asked to complete courses in Family IQ and attend four conferences per year, which include parent education workshops, family visits, and family group sessions. Counseling conference calls and weekly parent update calls with the student's mentor are ongoing. Regional support groups and full-day workshops are offered in regions where multiple families are enrolled.

While some therapeutic settings settle for a strictly cognitive approach, research shows that a multifaceted approach is what is most effective in working with adolescents. Rather than resting on the success of the past twenty years, Mount Bachelor Academy has been conscientious in integrating the latest research findings and evidence-based practice into its rich community tradition.

Thomas J. Brady, MD
Chief Medical Officer, CRC