What makes West Ridge Academy’s Residential Therapy Program unique?


Our residential treatment program offers a campus environment created with the intent to model a healthy and safe home environment. Our residents attend an accredited school, participate in various intramural sports, and engage in recreational therapy. Each student receives individual, family, and group counseling from our licensed mental health therapists. This individualized treatment approach helps struggling teens to find aid and restoration.

Learn more about our Residential Therapy clinical modalities:

Our program utilizes a Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Skills model. DBT is a type of cognitive-based therapy that focuses on developing four main skills sets: mindfulness, emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and interpersonal effectiveness.

Our Recreational Therapist delivers treatment services that use a wide range of activity and community-based interventions and techniques. They help improve the physical, cognitive, emotional, social, and leisure needs of our residents as well as assist them to develop skills, knowledge, and behaviors for daily living and community involvement.

Group Therapy provides an opportunity for teens and youth to learn and discover support and develop skills while working with peers who have experienced similar challenges. It also brings experiential, hands-on activities which help integrate acquired therapeutic skills into everyday living.

Equine Assisted Psychotherapy (EAP) is an inspiring experience in which rescue horses help heal humans. The horses are a therapeutic companion and are a unique tool for emotional growth and learning for our clients.

West Ridge Academy offers many ways to teach Social/Life Skills to help a person learn everyday and essential skills like cooking food for themselves, cleaning their home, balancing a personal budget, exercising regularly, eating a healthy diet, finding work, succeeding in a job, mastering interpersonal skills and communication techniques.

Sand Tray therapy is an evidence-based technique that uses a tray of sand along with small tools, toys, or figurines to help people express themselves without words. It is another effective way to help patients cope with trauma and anxiety, as well as express their feelings in therapy without needing words.

Adolescence and young adulthood bring with them their own set of challenges for many teens. Family connections may become strained as teenagers seek to assert their individuality and personality. Mood disorders and other mental health issues commonly appear for the first time following the onset of puberty. Experimentation or anxiety may accompany the journey of figuring out who you are, resulting in the need for healthier coping skills and additional support.

At West Ridge Academy, we recognize the issues our clients face are both unique and complex. As a result, we utilize a multifaceted approach to healing. This approach includes the option for medication assessment and management.

Our counseling programs can help troubled teens who are struggling with schooling, anxiety disorder, personality disorder, self-esteem, pornography, peers, motivation, lying, mild learning disabilities, effects of bereavement, anger, bipolar, oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), attention deficit, attention deficit disorder (ADD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), substance abuse, depression or dysthymia, reactive attachment disorder (RAD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), eating disorders, physical/sexual abuse, self-harm, or rebellion—just to name a few.

Our approach is ideal for:

  • Boys and girls who are troubled and within ages 9-17. West Ridge Academy has separate boys’ and girls’ campuses on its 50-acre property.
  • Struggling youth with mental health and behavioral problems that make it unsafe or unproductive for them to continue with a lower level of treatment. 
  • Adolescents with depression, bi-polar disorder, anxiety, substance use, addiction, ADHD, family relationship problems, significant academic decline, oppositional defiant disorder, trouble with adoption or attachment, self-harm, or other mental health issues which require a higher level of intense treatment, structure, supervision and accountability over a longer period of time for a long term change.

Residential pricing varies depending on individual needs.

For more information, call and talk to one of our admission specialists during normal business hours. Monday-Friday 9 am to 5 pm.

(801) 282-1000