One of the most important parts of residential treatment is the transition back to school or home. Young people can make huge progress during their stay at a treatment space or therapeutic boarding school, building self-esteem, growing in resilience, and developing new skills.
However, returning to a home or school environment can bring new challenges that may have been avoided in a safe and supported treatment space. Young people may reencounter triggers and other stresses of everyday life. Certain aspects of school and home environments may also pull adolescents back into previous ways of thinking and unhelpful behaviour patterns.
Fortunately, with effective support, young people can successfully navigate the return to their previous home and school, holding onto all the positive changes they’ve made during therapeutic boarding school. The return home can also be a chance to reinforce and strengthen their recovery journey, gaining confidence that they’ve acquired the resilience to thrive in everyday life.
Changing Levels of Care
One major change that young people experience when they leave a therapeutic school setting is a change in their level of care. During residential programs, they may have attended several therapeutic sessions a day, from talk therapy to experiential activities to creative therapy.
When they return home or to boarding school, this will likely reduce significantly. Instead of attending daily sessions, they might continue outpatient treatment through a few appointments each week.
To manage this change, many residential programs implement step-down care. This means gradually reducing the amount of treatment hours and level of care a young person receives. This process may begin towards the end of a young person’s residential stay and continue in the months and years after they return home.
Residential programs typically work with young people to access outpatient care in their local area or boarding school. They may already have connections with mental health professionals in their area or use their knowledge and expertise to find the highest quality support.
The therapists, counsellors, and other professionals who make up each individual’s residential support team can work with the new support team to transfer the necessary information and ensure continuity of care.
Changing Environments
When a young person leaves residential care, they re-enter their home and school environments. This transition isn’t always easy. Young people may reencounter difficult interpersonal relationships, social and academic pressures, and triggers of traumatic experiences.
Adapting to a School Environment
At residential treatment spaces and therapeutic boarding schools, educational programs are designed and implemented with mental health recovery in mind. Therapeutic spaces take great care to avoid some of the harmful practices that can arise in educational settings, such as pressure to perform, anxiety about exams, and competition with peers.
When young people return to their school environment, they may have to navigate these challenges again. With the resilience, skills, and coping mechanisms acquired in residential treatment, young people should be able to approach these dynamics differently, maintaining a positive view of themselves and balancing school work with other parts of their lives and identities.
However, young people may still require some additional support, especially when they first return to school. This may be offered by their previous support team or new therapists and counsellors. During therapy sessions, young people can talk through any challenges they are facing and collaboratively find solutions.
At The Wave, we often hold a set of reintroduction meetings in a young person’s year group or facilitate mediation with peers and staff in other ways. In some cases, we work with schools to change a young person’s year group or educational pathway to fit their educational interests. We also involve a dedicated case manager to support the school.
Returning to a Home Environment
Another big change for young people leaving residential treatment is reentering their home environments. Families are usually excited and happy to be reunited with their loved ones, but they may also feel nervous about what’s to come. Before a young person went into treatment, their family may have fallen into unhealthy dynamics that made recovery more difficult. Both young people and family members may be apprehensive about these dynamics reemerging.
The most important part of the return to home happens while a young person is still in residential treatment, through family interventions. This might include family therapy (on-site or online), parental skills training, psychoeducation, and other treatment modalities for the whole family. During these sessions, family members learn to identify and replace unhelpful dynamics, creating a positive and supportive family system.
This means that when a young person returns home, they won’t return to the same home environment. They’ll return to an environment that has developed and changed to benefit the well-being of every family member, as well as their own recovery journey.
Of course, these changes can sometimes feel difficult to maintain and there may still be work ahead. Many families continue outpatient family therapy to help them manage these challenges and continue developing their skills. At The Wave, we also stay connected with families after they leave our treatment space to offer ongoing advice and support.
Preparing from the Beginning
The return to everyday life shouldn’t start at the end of a residential stay. Instead, it’s something that young people, staff, and families work on from day one of a treatment program. Parental involvement should be tightly integrated into a treatment program and education should be directed towards a young person’s future.
In practice, this means that a significant part of therapy involves identifying challenges faced in everyday life at school and home and developing skills to navigate them. It includes exploring the triggers a young person might face in their home or school environment and finding ways to create safe, comfortable spaces. It requires understanding what each young person requires to thrive – and what needs to be done to get there.
Keeping Recovery on Track
After a person has left a residential treatment program or therapeutic school setting, ongoing support is key to keeping recovery on track. This might include check-ins with their old support team through online sessions or in-person visits. It should also include regular sessions with mental health professionals based in their area.
If a young person returns to a boarding school, the school’s mental health support team can play a big role in supporting ongoing recovery. This may involve pastoral care teams, head teams, safeguarding teams, and counselling teams. While boarding schools are often not well-equipped to manage more serious mental health disorders, they can offer the day-to-day guidance and care required to strengthen a young person’s recovery journey.
The Wave Clinic: a Therapeutic Boarding and Education Space with a Difference
At The Wave Clinic, we believe in inclusive education, regardless of mental health issues. Education is an integral part of our programs. By combining exceptional clinical care with personal learning plans, vocational qualifications, and global citizenship projects, we support young people to develop, learn, and look to the future.
Our programs focus on building life advantage. That means helping young people develop the skills they need to thrive. Through mental health support, care, education, and enriching experiences, we help young people believe in themselves and gain the knowledge and experience they need to move forward.
If you’re interested in finding out more about our programs, get in touch today. We’re here to make a difference.
