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Provo Canyon School
Provo Canyon School Students Enjoy Museum Visit
The Hill Aerospace Museum in Utah witnessed a group of excited visitors in June. Eight Provo Canyon School students visited the museum with two therapists from the Boy's Campus. The museum was founded in 1981 and was relocated to its current location in 1991. Over 80 aircrafts from all over the world are currently on display there. Apart from World War II models, planes from the cold war era and the later periods are also exhibited. The museum is part of the United States Air Force Heritage Program.
The students left the Provo Boy's campus at about noon, accompanied by staff members John Voight and Phil Cox. Phil Cox is on of the Recreational therapists at PCS and John Voight is a clinical therapist in charge of a team of students at Provo Canyon. The gentleman who toured the students was a retired pilot himself and shared stories from his own flying days as well as interesting history about the other planes there. The students were particularly impressed with the passion the tour guide showed for the different planes and the stories that they told.
One of major highlights of the trip was a section of the museum dedicated to interactive display. This section allowed the kids to play various video games related to flying planes. A flight simulator helped the students understand the physics behind plane flying and just how complicated flying planes can be. After taking in all of the exhibits, the boys looked at the outdoor displays. On the way back from the trip John and Phil were able to draw parallels between flying airplanes and charting personal success. Phil posed the question of “how does a pilot get to his/her destination?”
After several guesses and thinking it through all of the boys came up with the notion that in order to get to any destination you need a flight plan or you will never “get to where you are going.” From their the boys were able to see the connection between flying a plane and having goals in their own lives to help them in getting to their ultimate destinations, whether it be reaching a higher status in the Provo Canyon Program, graduating from high school or building a better relationship with their parents. The students were asked to think about what their own personal flight plan would look like and were asked to come up with several ideas as a way of making meaning of their trip to the museum. All of the boys returned to campus with a sense of excitement
about crafting a flight plan of their own, and a new understanding of how critical it is to know where you are so that you can know where you are going. Once they returned to main campus, the students expressed their gratitude for being able to go on the trip and how much fun it was to visit the museum.
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Provo Canyon School Sports
Students are provided and encouraged to take advantage of the opportunities at Provo Canyon School to excel in sports. Many students have used sports as a way to release tension and pent up anxiety learn more >>
Helping Adolescents Is A Continuing Process
An adolescent enrolled at Provo Canyon School enters a continuum of care that extends over time. Mental health care at Provo Canyon School does not imply warehousing or getting a child off the streets and into a safe haven for a period of time. It does not imply “fixing” a child so they don't engage in dangerous or self-defeating behaviors. Care for Provo Canyon School care givers means a process of working with clients to help them recognize and accept their problems, successfully commit to and make important life changes in thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and relationships, and to sustain these after residential care has ended. learn more >>
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Provo Canyon School: Origin and Functioning
Jack Williams and Robert Crist started Provo Canyon School in 1971. Williams was also the administrative director of the school and Crist was the chief psychiatrist and the acting director of the school. Dr. Crist has been a board certified psychiatrist who spent the greater majority of his 50 plus year career working with adolescents and their families to ensure a higher quality of life.
A graduate of the University Of Utah (School Of Medicine), Crist trained in Psychiatry at the University of Los Angeles. Their commitment to working with adolescents and their families has been consistenly strong through three decades of service. Dr. Christ retired in June of 2007 after almost thirty years of involvement with Provo Canyon School. Dr. Lane Smith has taken over as Medical Director of Provo Canyon School and oversees both campuses.
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About the Provo Canyon School
Overview
Funding
Provo Canyon School is a private institution, which offers a variety of different funding options from difference sources. Provo Canyon School is able to accept funding from the federal government as well as several state governments through prearranged contracts. Provo Canyon can also accept private insurances. In most cases private insurance will cover some portion of a stay, which can ease the financial burden of a Privately funded tuition. Provo Canyon is also considered a boarding school in addition to being a residential treatment center. Therefore, student loans are also an option for parents. Both Prep-gate and Key Loans have been funding sources utilized by parents in the past.
Please click on the Other Resources for information about Prep Gate and Key loans. If you have further questions about tuition please contact Provo Canyon School directly.
Provo Canyon School is an accredited school as well as a JCAHO approved residential treatment center. Provo Canyon is a 242-bed facility with two different campus sites for boys and girls. We provide services to students who are between the ages of 11 and 17 years of age with a variety of different clinical needs. The average length of stay for a Provo Canyon School student is 10 months, however this can vary considerably depending on the clinical issues of the student. At the completion of most students' time at Provo students transition to a less structured environment where they can continue to build upon the success they have experienced at Provo Canyon.
Clinical Services
The approach to care at Provo Canyon is an eclectic mix of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), psycho-dynamic approach as well as insight oriented therapy. Each clinician within Provo Canyon brings a unique piece to the school. Some of the therapists are trained in sand tray therapy while others may be certified in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). Please refer to the Clinical Approaches page for a more in depth review of what each of these approaches mean. Provo Canyon's clinical program includes group therapy, family therapy, recreational therapy, special interest groups as well as weekly individual counseling with a licensed therapist. Currently, there are over thirty different
licensed clinicians on staff at Provo Canyon School, each dedicated to a team of students. Therapists are responsible for the clinical needs of the students including but not limited to their treatment plan and goals while in the program, their advancement through the program, contact with parents and/or guardians for each student within their team and coordination with the recreational therapist assigned to their team around monthly recreational therapy activities. There is also a full-time psychiatrist working at each Provo Campus as well.
Chemical Dependency issues
One of the areas that Provo Canyon has been particularly committed to is working with adolescents who have had a serious history of chemical dependency. Provo Canyon works from a series of workbooks designed by former clinical director, Stephen Biddolph which was later published and adopted by Hazelden treatment facility for their adolescent recovery program. Students are also involved in Alcoholics Anonymous groups, Narcotics Anonymous groups as well as chemical dependency retreats throughout the program. Both our boys and girls campuses have licensed chemical dependency therapists working with our students.
Academics
Provo Canyon School offers a comprehensive academic program with over 140 different academic classes taught within an 8:1 ratio. All of our teachers are special education certified and capable of working with students who have a myriad of behavioral and clinical issues, as well as learning differences. We have two full-time learning specialists who work with our students and their Individual Education Plans. Provo Canyon School also makes every effort to keep in touch with the child study teams from the sending school districts of students as they progress through the program.
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THE PROVO CANYON SCHOOL, UTAH
Since 1971, the Provo Canyon School has worked with over 5000 children who are living with behavioral, learning and emotional difficulties. Every year, many students successfully move on to rejoin their graduating high school classes, attend college or pursue vocational careers in the job force. Often times Provo Canyon is considered a last hope for students who have exhausted other therapeutic resources.
Provo Canyon invites families considering placing their child within the school to visit their campuses for a full tour.
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Another great success story from Provo's Girls' Campus!
Recently a young woman from the Girl's Campus at Provo Canyon graduated after a very successful stay at Provo Canyon School. She came to Provo Canyon with verbally and physically aggressive behaviors. Her stay at Provo Canyon School spanned two years before she was ready to leave and be successful. Over the course of those two years she began to realize and accept that the “skills” she thought she had acquired to be successful in life were not working for her. In fact, they were not skills at all, but detrimental behaviors taking her down a path of self-destruction. As she began to learn different coping skills such as releasing anxiety, understanding her anger, listening to her parents and engaging in her individual therapy things began to turn the corner.
During her stay at Provo Canyon School she was also introduced to the healing quality of exercise. She gained a passion for exercising and spending time outside. For this particular student exercise and the great outdoors was a way to work through built up anxiety she had difficulty managing otherwise.
When she first began to have family therapy sessions with her family she refused to see them unless she could go off campus. This kind of power struggle behavior was typical for her, but when she realized that her parents were going to hold the line, by hearing her frustration while at the same time sticking to their convictions, she agreed to come out and meet with them. For a number of months her parents came and visited every other weekend. The first couple of weekends they came she refused to come out. Gradually, she agreed to meet with them and be part of family therapy sessions. As she progressed in the program, she was able to go home for well planned and by and large successful visits. She began listening to her parents' direction and respecting their authority in a new way. Similarly, her parents learned to listen to her issues and come to a compromise in difficult situations. There were also marked improvements in her academics while at Provo Canyon and she even began to make new friends who encouraged her to do her work and remain engaged with the program.
When she left Provo Canyon School she sent a letter to her team that was very positive. She was able to reflect on her experience at Provo Canyon with a sense of wisdom and confidence that was absent before her stay. She realized that she had made true friends while there and sent her well wishes to the girls still working on their own eventual graduation. She wrote in her letter that the challenges of being at Provo were not easy, in fact it was often difficult and she wanted to give up many times. However, through trusting herself and working on her issues she was able to find a personal strength inside of her that pushed her to deeper and deeper levels.
She was able to leave the program with a great sense of accomplishment and went back home to a more traditional environment. Provo Canyon's staff wish her the best in her journey!
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Provo Canyon School Staff
Provo Canyon School has had a long standing reputation for working with tough kids who may have a variety of different clinical and behavioral issues. Much of their success depends on the staff available to students on the campuses. So many of the students who have graduated from Provo Canyon reflect on the deeply meaningful relationships they forged with their therapist, fellow students, teachers and counselors. Provo Canyon believes in the power of relationships as playing a major role in the success of each student enrolled at the school.
Therapists at Provo Canyon School are also invested in their own parallel process while working with students. They attend trainings and workshops regularly to further their skills sets as therapists and many are working as clinicians while earning Doctorates or PhDs in their respective fields. There is a wealth of knowledge within Provo Canyon's walls, which is in a constant state of growth. Therapists are also open to the ideas and feedback of parents and students. Therefore the collaborative process that occurs is often a recipe for success! For a list of departments please click Who We Are? |
ProvoCanyon School a residential treatment facility
Provo Canyon School a residential treatment facility owned and operated as a subsidiary of Universal Health Services, Inc, one of the nation's leading hospital management organization. Provo Canyon School specializes in treating teen boys and girls with emotional, behavioral and learning difficulties and have been unresponsive to outpatient counseling or previous inpatient psychiatric or substance abuse programs.
Amanda Beal is a therapist at Provo Canyon School who comes to us with a rich background in individual and group therapy. She began her education at Utah Valley State College where she earned her Bachelor's in Behavioral Science. She then went on to earn her Master's in Counseling from Gonzaga University located in Spokane, Washington. She remarks that her Master's experience was amazing for her with many hours of face-to-face contact with very diverse populations of people. She found a particular interest in Attachment theory and is now working on her PhD at Brigham Young University in Provo, UT where it is the focus of her studies. She brings her knowledge and skills set to Provo Canyon School in a way that incorporates Attachment theory through a here and now approach. Her goal when working with the boys is to enhance the sense of healthy attachment that students have with their parents or guardians. Her therapeutic orientation is self-described as strengths based with a soft approach. When she decided to come to Provo Canyon School it was very clear that the place she would be most helpful was with the younger, slightly milder population of boys. So far she has been using, play therapy with the students, such as puppets and role-playing as well was bringing sand tray therapy to the campus. Currently, she is looking to expand her use of sand tray therapy, which she is trained in and have a permanent set up of it in her office. She has found a great response for the boys that have been using it thus far, particularly those who have trouble articulating their thoughts and feelings verbally. Sand tray therapy has been proven to work with a variety of children with different disorders as well as being a great tool when working through trauma without talking. Amanda brings a new perspective to the program because of her softer, strengths based approach, as well as looking at things through an attachment lens. Amanda has been with us since July of 2006, and once she completes her PhD in August of 2008, she plans to stay with us.
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A Brief History of Changes in the Provo Canyon School
Provo Canyon School began in the 1970's as a behavior modification school for troubled adolescent boys. Clientele at that time consisted primarily of boys who exhibited a pattern of negativistic, hostile, and defiant behavior. Parents couldn't control them, school districts couldn't keep them in school, and communities found them to be a persistent problem to their judicial system. They were boys who frequently and dangerously lost their tempers, often fought with their peers, argued with their parents and other adults, resented authority, and defied laws. They were bullies who were spiteful and vindictive. Often, their budding antisocial behavior had an even more dangerous component that included gang involvement, substance abuse, and criminal behavior. Yet, they were young enough and not quite bad enough to warrant incarceration with big-time felons.
Provo Canyon School arose as an important answer to this social need. Throughout the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, Provo Canyon School became nationally and even internationally recognized as a place where adolescents with this type of behavior could find help, and families, school districts, and societies could find relief. More>>
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| Testimonials |
From Parents
My introverted child responded beautifully to other students. I realize now that companionship was what he needed.
- Stieve
She appears more responsible and calmer.
- Karl P
She now helps me with the household chores and stuff. What magic did Provo Canyon School do?
- Avan K
Involved teachers, who work with you, help in everything…
- Hanny M
Hopes of joining college seemed impossible, until I was admitted to Provo Canyon.
- Peter
I was not convinced about sending my child to the Provo Canyon. But a meeting with the teachers and therapists answered all my questions. My boy, otherwise an introvert - is enjoying his first year at the school now.
- Stella W
He writes letters of his trips regularly. He seems to be enjoying himself.
- Kimmy
I have become a very good runner at Provo Canyon. I Hope to make a career in sports.
- Mark Joe
Recognizing that children are our greatest hope for a better human race, Unbroken Trust, a University of Utah student club.
- Glen Simon
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