Mentally healthy students have the emotional skills required to learn and engage in school activities. However, students with mental health disorders who display behavior that puts themselves, students and teachers at risk require specialized faculty and mental health professionals to help them achieve academic success.
Mental health residential schools are non-stigmatized, supportive academic environments that remove students from situations contributing to their behavior and mental health challenges. As a result, they receive effective treatment in a school-based mental health program with proper staff, educators, and structures in place.
What is a Mental Health Residential School?
School-based mental health offers a unique support system that allows students to avoid falling behind when learning to cope with or overcome mental health conditions. Teens dealing with depression, anxiety, social problems, executive function needs, and learning differences live at mental health residential schools where they can access mental health care in an academic setting. Students receive treatment while attending classes and participating in healthy activities to help them reach their full potential.
The attending staff at these facilities includes teachers, therapists, medical personnel, and other support staff to meet the specific needs of each student. Staff use proven clinical therapies in conjunction with the power of healing relationships to help instill lasting change. For example, at Telos, our 1:4 staff ratio prevents students from falling through the cracks with a Principles Coach who works very closely with the student and his therapist. This ensures the child’s needs are always met, and they have support and encouragement to help them succeed.
Do Mental Health Residential Schools Provide Quality Education?
While not all mental health residential schools are created equal, all teachers must be licensed and credentialed in their content areas. As a result, they often surpass the generalist teachers in public school settings, offering a more in-depth education for facility students.
Will My Child Be Cut Off From Family?
These facilities tend to take a more community-based approach that includes family interactions. In fact, parents receive daily updates and are encouraged to maintain close contact with both staff and their teens. The goal is to provide an integrated, comprehensive program with many arms of support based on the student’s specific needs.
What is the Purpose of Mental Health Residential Schools?
Teen residential mental health facilities with boarding schools use evidence-based programs that help students develop the coping skills they need to manage their mental health conditions and symptoms. This includes:
- Dealing with conflicts
- Solving problems
- Developing healthy peer relationships
- Preventing relapses in substance use and self-harming behavior
- Preventing thoughts of suicide
- Managing aggression and violent behavior
Teen residential mental health facilities provide early intervention for students dealing with a wide scope of mental health issues, removing them from dangerous settings to reduce their chances of lapses.
Treatment programs and onsite services are designed to address specific mental health conditions so students always have access to appropriate support and resources. Family members also have access to these resources to help them develop healthier relationships with their teens and ensure they understand their role in treatment.
School cultures are quite different than typical public or private school settings, focused on support. Staff are also trained to recognize early warning signs of crisis and deepening mental health issues. A strong referral process ensures students receive the right mental health services and access to the best mental health professionals as their condition improves or progresses.
Why Do Parents Enroll Their Teens in Mental Health Residential Schools?
When parents aren’t equipped to handle their child’s mental health issues, they want the best solution that will provide the therapeutic guidance and supervision they can’t provide. Often, working parents who have teenage children with behavioral health issues such as severe depression, anxiety, self-harming, substance abuse, etc., have tried multiple treatment options, but nothing has worked.
The residential treatment school option helps their child overcome mental and behavioral health challenges, providing supervision, education, and care while also helping preserve parent/child relationships. More importantly, when a teen is putting themselves, their parents, and members of the community at risk, parents can remove their children from the situation to keep them safe and help resolve their mental health problems. These facilities also offer a transition from strict residential treatment facilities when students are showing signs of improvement.
What are the Benefits of Mental Health Residential Schools?
Schools with comprehensive mental health programs assist students in several ways, including:
- Academic success
- Building social skills
- Superior leadership
- Becoming self-aware
- Creating caring connections with adults as positive mentors
- Building a sense of community
- Ensuring school attendance
- Improving discipline
- Providing a stable routine
Mental health residential schools are treatment centers for teens facilitating both mental health healing and educational success so teens can return to a productive life.
If your teenager needs the structured care and support of a residential treatment center, request more information on our program here.