About

One thing that sets Wolf Creek Academy apart from other therapeutic boarding schools is its use of Adventure Therapy. Adventure therapy provides a therapeutic context in the midst of an indoor or outdoor activity where we give our students opportunities to apply the things they have been learning in individual and group counseling.

Adventure therapy uses outdoor activities involving risk and physical and emotional challenges. Adventure Therapy usually refers to primitive methods in wilderness contexts requiring adaptation or the ability to cope. Outdoor experiential therapy is an outdoor treatment to promote “rehabilitation, growth, development, and enhancement of an individual’s physical, social, and psychological well-being through the application of structured activities involving direct experience”. Adventure therapy includes the use of adventure activities supported by traditional therapy. Often, adventure therapy is conducted in a group or family context, though increasingly, adventure therapy is being used with individuals.

Adventure therapy approaches psychological treatment through experience and action within cooperative games, trust activities, problem-solving initiatives, high adventure, outdoor pursuits, and wilderness expeditions. One can view challenges as significant in eliciting desired behavioral changes. Positive behavior changes, which are synonymous with psychological healing, can occur through various processes. 

At Wolf Creek Academy, our therapy team works with the Director of Adventure Groups to help create adventure group experiences related to how each young teen responds to challenges and life at home. These adventure therapy activities involve real or perceived risk—physically and emotionally—and provide teens with a safe setting to practice decision-making, problem-solving, and collaboration. Through this process, a teen can learn about healthy coping skills and self-expression, plus identify personal anxiety triggers when confronted by difficult situations in their everyday lives. When a young teen suffers from past trauma or a mental disorder, adventure therapy can help him, or her develop interpersonal skills, including trust, communication, and setting boundaries.

Another benefit of adventure therapy at Wolf Creek Academy is that it helps teens engage in and relate to past experiences. It also helps adolescents heal by providing exciting growth and self-understanding of their personal strengths and weaknesses. As they face danger and move ahead, they gain self-confidence, which prepares them to overcome future difficulties.

In adventure therapy, teens also learn what it means to be accountable for their actions as you work as part of a team. Each teen sees how they make individually and with other group members connect directly with the consequences of their adventure. And sharing these outcomes helps teens open up to one another. Building healthy relationships with our staff and other students at Wolf Creek Academy through adventure therapy also benefits each teen as they deal with family relationships.

Serving the students and families of Wolf Creek Academy binds us together with a shared purpose! And we come together to forge healthy relationships that lead to successful family restoration. That’s our goal and purpose, and adventure therapy helps young teens struggling with various emotional and behavioral problems come to a new understanding of themselves and one another.