Provo Canyon School Articles

SUBSTANCE ABUSE TREATMENT PROGRAM AT PROVO CANYON SCHOOL

The abuse of chemical substances has always been a significant behavior problem of youth who are treated at Provo Canyon School. In the 1970s and 80s, when Provo Canyon School treated youth with predominantly conduct and oppositional defiance disorders, chemical abuse of drugs, such as smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, driving under the influence, and smoking pot (marijuana), was considered as one of the major indicators for youth acting out. Substance abuse was viewed as an expression of socially defiant attitudes and misconduct. It was seen as a reckless part of the culture of defiance and misbehavior of the time. A diagnosis of substance abuse was considered to be secondary to a more serious psychological or organic disorder in the student entering Provo Canyon School for treatment.

Provo Canyon School provided an excellent care environment for these youth for two reasons. First, it was a highly structured care facility with a behavior modification program that helped youth learn from and take accountability for their choices. Second, it was a drug-free, zero-tolerance care facility with a highly moral treatment philosophy. That is to say, Provo Canyon School was firmly rooted in the traditional values of marriage, homogeneous family organization, and ethics of honesty, trust, and self-discipline.

During the 1990s, substance abuse and dependency/addiction was identified as a primary disorder (called a primary disease by some professionals). That is, it stood alone as its own diagnosable disorder and was not merely a symptom of another psychological disorder. Youth began being admitted to Provo Canyon School with a primary diagnosis of polysubstance abuse, and some even with chemical dependency or addiction. As problems directly related to substance abuse became more serious and prevalent in students being admitted to Provo Canyon School, the need became evident to strengthen the treatment protocols at within the program. No longer was it adequate to merely have drug awareness and step discussion groups. It became necessary to provide counselors trained specifically in treatment of chemical addiction and polysubstance abuse. Clinical therapists were not sufficiently trained or skilled in diagnosing and providing meaningful treatment for clients with more serious problems in abuse and addiction. Subsequently, Provo Canyon School adopted a substance abuse treatment program that emulated the 12-Step program. For several years thereafter, clinical therapists dually licensed and trained in clinical therapy and substance abuse ran 12-Step groups and had the youth work some of the STEP workbooks. These groups were both support and process groups where youth presented information about themselves and their steps to their peers and were encouraged and confronted by the group members. Psycho-educational information was also presented in the forms of videos and literature to help educate the youth to the dangers and long-term effects of drug abuse.

In 1996, Provo Canyon School further strengthen the substance abuse treatment program. It began a top-to-bottom renovation of the drug treatment program, investing considerable expense in improving its program of care. One clinical therapist was selected to serve as director of the chemical abuse treatment program at Provo Canyon School and was charged with revamping the program. Several other therapists were also trained and licensed as substance abuse counselors and worked at least part-time running drug groups.

Program development was extensive. Provo Canyon School developed a full continuum of care program that was based on a cognitive-behavioral and 12-Step program of care. An extensive intake and assessment procedure was developed that included parent and teen self-screening tools and an exhaustive interview-based assessment of chemical abuse and treatment needs. Treatment planning goals were formulated specific to chemical abuse problems being experienced by the youth with observable, measurable, and achievable measures. Treatment protocols were expanded to include a rigorous psycho-educational approach to helping youth with this diagnosis to study and learn about abuse, addiction, and drugs. This didactic method was augmented with an individual study program of workout exercises formulated for youth. The youth even helped develop the workout exercises. A manual was written by the director of the program (Stephen Biddulph) with approximately 28 workout exercises that were assigned out to the youth according to their individual need and progress in the program. Each youth was also assigned to a process group where they presented their work and had other youth assist them in getting clean and sober and wanting to stay that way. Recreation therapy was drawn heavily upon to provide a meaningful experiential component to the learning and make it more fun. Clinical therapists working with the youth were provided information about their work in the chemical recovery area so that this could be discussed with parents and other outside professionals with a need to know.

Eventually, Hazelden Foundation (Center City, MN) discovered the manual written at Provo Canyon School and adopted it to their own use. The author, Stephen Biddulph, was asked to rewrite the manual with more professional specifications, and it was published by Hazelden Foundation in 1999 as The Adolescent Recovery Plan. The program included workout exercises for the youth along with a workout book for the parents and an aftercare workbook. The package included a facilitator’s guide for group work, a comic (fantastic) book that presented the basic principles of recovery in a interesting way for teens, medallions, wrist bracelets, and other paraphernalia. This Plan is still sold on the market by Hazelden Information and Educational Services.

Provo Canyon School continues to use The Adolescent Recovery Plan as a part of their chemical treatment program, and have adapted it to their specialized environment. Each program, girls and boys, has their own Licensed Substance Abuse Counselor to direct the program and other clinical therapists who are also licensed as substance abuse counselors to help run groups and meet with youth. Joyfully, the substance abuse treatment program has enjoyed a much closer integration into the treatment milieu and measurement of outcomes and progress.

When a youth graduates from Provo Canyon School and returns home or moves on to another post-treatment environment, more effort is being made to prepare them for aftercare. The Adolescent Recovery Plan provides valuable information that is used by counselors to help the youth develop a positive support team and to formulate realistic and strong aftercare actions that sustain sobriety.

Provo Canyon School’s drug abuse recovery program fits the School’s overall treatment philosophy in an integrated and harmonious way. Recovery is viewed as being an empowerment of strength inside and outside the individual youth. The essential powers of recovery—be they related to drug abuse/addiction or from another behavioral or emotional problem—are the same. Recovery first requires that a youth clearly recognize the problem in their life and the negative affects that the problem is having on their quality of life. They must also see their own inherent worth while at the same time seeing the ugliness of the addiction. They must overcome denial, minimization, distrust, hopelessness, and helplessness in having the courage to make a commitment to change. If the commitment is not made, change will never occur, at least sustainable change. Commitment leads to action. Action should take the most work because it requires the changing of beliefs, attitudes, thoughts, feelings, actions, and relationships that enable addictive or self-defeating behavior. But oft time youth spend extended periods of their care wallowing in denial and never making the commitment to improve. Much of this comes from fear, hopelessness, lack of trust and vision, and never having accepted problems as opportunities for growth instead of reasons to feel guilty and ashamed.

Provo Canyon School’s treatment program seeks to strike at the basis of this disabling fear and negative attitude by moving the youth through these levels of empowerment. Sustainable recovery requires that the youth heals, forgives, and discovers. There is miraculous power in forgiving self and others and in asking forgiveness for wrongs done. This is an area that parents can dramatically help their children in the recovery process. There is no room in true recovery for revenge, hatred, and ill feelings. There must be forgiveness for wounds to heal. But their must be confession, acknowledgement, and accountability as well.

Heavy drug use and attitudes surrounding drug abuse diminish and even prevent self-development. A youth must also access the power to discover themselves, their talents, skills, interests, and meaningful hobbies. It is this kind of self-discovery that empowers sustainable recovery and fills the void created by abstinence.

These powers in Provo Canyon School’s substance abuse treatment program are in complete harmony with the powers of other types of problem management skills that youth work on, and these are designed to be measured as a youth advances through the care program. Thus, true, sustainable change can be more greatly predicted prior to the time of discharge.

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