Power of Integrating Education into Residential Care

Relational experiences in education speaks to the importance of the one-on-one relationships our teachers will be able to create with the students. In traditional schools, youth with backgrounds of trauma or adversity often lack the skills they need to succeed in a “one-to-many” instructional environment. At Promise Academy, students will experience education in a completely different way. Classes and curriculum are designed around individualized and small group instruction with very small student–teacher ratios. This environment is designed to give youth the support they need to change perceptions about themselves and open their minds to learning and growth.

At the Idaho Youth Ranch Residential Center for Healing & Resilience, education and therapeutic treatments are not two different things—they are two aspects of one treatment plan for our youth. From a practical point of view, students will see us as a single entity. School staff and facility staff will train together, plan together, and wrap around each individual student in the most supportive and healing way possible. We have the same goals and the same desire to give students the support and individualized instruction necessary to help them be successful.

The school and residential center are united under the basic philosophical tenants of Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS). The very basic belief in the CPS model is “students do well if they can, and if they can’t there is a deficit of skill, not will.” We know that youth will do their best work when their strengths are highlighted and supported rather than focusing on any deficits or struggles they may have. Our teachers will work with youth to build on strengths and fill in gaps of skill or knowledge that are hindering our youth. Our students do not choose to fail, nor do they want to be in trouble, but they do have significant gaps in their capacity/skills that hinder their abilities to be successful. At Promise Academy we are focused on building on strengths and capacity and teaching those skills so students can be successful.

At the Idaho Youth Ranch Residential Center for Healing & Resilience, school staff and care staff are all part of one team, speaking the same language with the youth. Team members at Promise Academy will train in de-escalation techniques and incident management just as the care team will train with educators in areas of curriculum, assessment, instruction, and classroom management. Students will receive the same message using the same vocabulary from all school and facility staff: “You are valued, we see your potential, and we are here to help.”

Promise Academy is based on a model of shared leadership. For example, our senior-most teachers will sit on the leadership team and have direct input in the instructional decisions. All team members who have contact with students in the academic setting will have the opportunity to share insights on needs, gaps, and results for students. Every student will have an individual learning plan, and it is vital that we monitor those plans and meet frequently to discuss student progress through their plans. Teacher collaboration is also critical. Collaboration time is built into the master schedule for planning and data meetings.

As students learn strategies to maintain emotional and behavioral regulation, they will also learn strategies to be successful in a school environment. Students will learn organizational and management strategies that work for them. By the time they complete their treatment plan, each student should understand how they best learn and what types of accommodations are most effective for them. Furthermore, youth and their families will learn how to advocate for themselves and the accommodations that they may need to be successful when they return to their local schools.

Most schools use a “one-size-fits-all” approach to education that has been proven ineffective, particularly with student populations who have experienced childhood adversity. Youth with traumatic or difficult backgrounds often struggle with keeping up with their peers in school and, by an early age, many have internalized a self-image where they are stupid, incapable, or lacking. Many believe their futures are bleak because they’ve never experienced a learning style that made sense to them and, thus, they aren’t capable of more. At Promise Academy, we address the educational and behavioral challenges of such youth with hands-on, project-based learning designed to uncover new talents and break down complex material into digestible information. This style of education teaches students the “why” behind the curriculum and gives them the opportunity to experience education differently.

In every lesson plan, we consider the following questions:

• What will students see in this lesson?
• What will students hear in this lesson?
• What will students touch in this lesson?
• What will students do with the information they are learning in this lesson?
• What comes next?
• Why are students learning this?

Studies show that student engagement is critical to filling learning gaps and, more importantly, to transforming negative self-image into positive self-esteem.

Throughout the Residential Center for Healing & Resilience, family-driven and youth-guided care are core components of the overall model. In education, the same components are critically important for student success. Too often, these students are excluded from participating in the decision making around their learning. A collaborative and engaged process with youth helps provide realistic expectations, commitment to the process, and ownership of the outcomes.