A True Wilderness Experience  

  • Is your teen out of control, failing in school, or showing signs of depression or substance abuse?
  • Are you deeply concerned for your teenager?
  • Is your relationship with your teen deteriorating?

The InnerRoads Expedition program helps struggling teens change direction, build self-worth and interpersonal skills, develop into happy and engaged members of the family, and successfully transition home or to a boarding school. This intensive intervention for adolescents ages 14-17 combines a four-week wilderness expedition with integrated family and community components. After the wilderness trip, the youth spend two weeks engaged in community-based service projects that help carry the growth made in the backcountry into living in a larger community. Throughout the program, parents work with a therapist in their own community. This therapist and our program therapist work together to coordinate treatment and help both parent and teen make the changes necessary to start the teen on a successful path back home. In addition to exchanging therapeutically focused letters, parents and teens engage in family activities and therapy.

Aftercare is highly recommended for our graduates. For western Montana families, we have an aftercare program that includes long term mentoring services. For out of state families, we can create an individually tailored aftercare package for your family that is implemented in your home community. If you decide upon a long-term out of home placement, or would like to contract with another organization for aftercare services, we will gladly work with the new program to ensure a smooth, effective transition.

A few highlights about our program:

  • Expedition groups are small, with no more than 6 youth in a group.
  • Our staff to student ration is 1:2 or better.
  • The program therapist spends an average of one out of every three days with the group.
  • High-school credit is available through our approved academic curriculum.
  • We are fully licensed by the State of Montana and Idaho
  • Our program’s foundation is built on a strength-based, relationship-focused therapeutic framework, supervised by licensed therapeutic staff.

Wilderness Expedition

For the teens, the program begins with a 30-day backpacking trip in Montana or Idaho Wilderness Areas.  Each group contains six youth and three staff.  A licensed therapist assists staff in the development of individual treatment plans, works individually and in groups with the participants, and helps integrate the therapeutic progress of parent and child.  During this segment, wilderness therapy becomes the principal foundation for intense personal growth.

Our field staff live with the youth 24-hours a day for six consecutive weeks (four weeks in the backcountry, two weeks in the community), enduring the same environmental challenges, eating the same food, and walking the same miles.  This builds a therapeutic alliance between staff and child that surpasses what can be established in a traditional office setting.  A deep sense of trust and support is created.  Participants engage in a variety of therapeutically aimed activities, including group and individual therapy, journal writing, group initiatives, and wilderness crafts. Growth is found not simply through conversation, but in doing and experiencing.  The opportunity is extraordinary.  The teenagers finish with a strong sense of accomplishment, newfound respect for themselves and others, and deepened sense of empowerment.

The wilderness component ends with a solo experience.  After weeks of being challenged and supported by close contact with staff and peers, the youth face a more individual and inwardly focused task.  Each youth spends three days alone camped in one location. Motivation for reflection and self-care must now come from within.  While staff are nearby to monitor the youth's basic needs, solitude sets in and creates an opportunity for deep reflection on the past and on plans for a new future.  This is a powerful time, and the opportunity for growth is profound.

When solo ends, the youth walk out of the wilderness as their parents walk in from the trailhead, and the families spend the next two days engaged in family activities and therapy.

Family

While the wilderness segment invariably leads to significant growth, these changes are very difficult to maintain without a supportive and structured home environment.  While the youth are in the wilderness, their parents meet with mental health professionals for support and guidance in the creation of a home environment that can meet the child's long-term needs.  At minimum, each parent participates in parent group sessions and engages in additional professionally facilitated family activities.  Throughout the summer and well into the school year, there is continuous integration of parent participation, support, counseling, and training.

Community

After the youth come out of the wilderness and reunite with their family for the weekend the group moves to our community homestead just outside of Missoula. During this time the group creates and completes community service projects and recreational activities. The youth focus on transitioning and solidifying the growth they made in the wilderness into a more normalized community setting.

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