Alabama offers a wide range of services for troubled teens, from strict boot camps to gentler, outdoor-focused wilderness camps. Physical health is always a consideration, so some form of exercise will be offered, if not compulsory, alongside counseling and team activities. Length of stay and variety of services offered varies by camp.
Boot Camp
Military in nature, boot camps emphasize discipline and hard work, usually over one to three months. Many studies, such as a 1996 survey published by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, have shown that boot camps are largely ineffective. Several incidents of abuse and death have made boot camps increasingly unpopular in the United States, though the system has supporters.
Lee County Youth Development Center in Opelika, Alabama, provides a boot camp to juvenile offenders, that they call a detention center, as one treatment option.
The Alabama Department of Youth Services boasts six campuses, with a boot camp on its Autuaga campus.
Wilderness Camp
Wilderness camps, also known as "adventure therapy," are designed to teach pride and accomplishment through outdoor pursuits. Though some are almost as strict as boot camps, many are less severe, using long days of activity and group cohesion to build a teen's self-esteem and social skills.
Nationwide Outward Bound offers a four-week canoe program along Alabama's eastern shores.
The Pinnacle School's Elk River Treatment Program in Huntsville is an eight-week course for teenagers with a variety of challenges, such as learning disabilities or Asperger's, as well as those at risk.
Treatment Centers
Though rarely called "camps," treatment centers offer activities and supervision similar to boot and wilderness camps. However, they also provide the structured facilities of a hospital and offer long-term care instead of temporary programs. As they can be home to a teen for months, centers provide a wider diversity of group activities and treatments than the straightforward adventure of a wilderness camp or discipline of a boot camp.
Some treatment centers, such as Laurel Oaks Behavioral Health Center, specialize in children and teens; others, like Hill Crest Behavioral Health, accept all ages including teens.
School
Some teens need even longer treatment periods than a camp provides, so there are schools designed to meet their needs. There are public options, such as Alabama's non-residential CITY school, or private boarding schools like Paint Rock Valley.
Out of State
While Alabama has many options for treatment, if your child often runs away, you might consider sending him to camp in another state. She is much less likely to play truant if she has nowhere to go, and many treatment programs -- boarding schools as well as camps -- accept people from outside their own state.
Member Comments