Island View RTC
Syracuse, UT

Island View RTC is in the process of implementing several enhancements, programmatic refinements and adding focus to areas that will provide better service to residents, parents and referral sources. In addition to the toll-free number established in February of this year, we created a co-ed team for upper level residents in March, conducted an adoption seminar and as of April, re-aligned some of our clinicians and management staff to better serve our clients.

One of the consistent strengths of the Island View program is our team model. Historically, the teams of residents have been organized solely by gender. This structure typically consisted of separate girls' teams and separate boys' teams of 15-19 adolescents each with specifically assigned milieu or residential staff, teachers and others. Beginning this past March, we launched the first ever co-educational team, selecting residents who were at the higher levels of the program from the 4 gender specific teams to create one separate team of co-ed residents. "It has been something we have talked about for years and when the situation presented itself to try something new and as we heard from parents and referral sources that our program would benefit from creating a co-ed experience for our residents before they transition home, we began putting together the structure, staffing and procedures for this new team", said Steve Lancaster, LCSW, program director. The co-ed team, called the "Ruby Team" is set up to take from 9-12 residents and is being very well received by parents, residents and referral sources alike.

As with most residential programs, Island View's population includes many clients who are adopted. Two of our most senior clinicians, Dale Erdmann, LCSW and Rich Michaelson, LCSW conducted a seminar in late March for parents and siblings of our adopted residents. "We were pleasantly surprised at the huge turn-out and increasing interest in this area of our program", said Dale who led the event and recently attended the American Adoption Congress in Cleveland, OH (www.americanadoptioncongress.org ). The Island View based seminar consisted of clinical presentations on post-adoption treatment, networking between the parents and siblings, family therapy sessions and a support group. At the conference in Cleveland, Dale took away the latest information on adoption including how it impacts approximately 50 million Americans today.

Finally, as Island View is continuing to actively maintain an integrated, up-to-date and highly communicative program that will keep services strong and growing. To that end, we have recently revised how our clinicians are organized by re-aligning them with specific teams, by gender (including the recent co-ed team). Additionally, some staff have been reassigned to more specific roles. Jason Drake, LCSW is now the Clinical Program Manager for the Boy's and Co-ed Teams and Kim Hill, LCSW is the Clinical Program Manager for the Girls and DBT Teams. The other 8 therapists and 2 substance abuse counselors have been aligned under Jason and Kim by gender specific team. Jason and Kim report directly to Steve Lancaster in his enhanced program director role as the Clinical & Residential Services Director. Steve, who has been with Island View since its inception, now has total program oversight and responsibility for not only the "milieu" area but now the entire clinical program and therapists. He is supported on the residential side by Shaun Smith, MMHC, Residential Program Manager for the Boys Teams and Misty Rosier, MMHC, Residential Program Manager for the Girls Teams. This re-alignment process will be fully implemented over the coming weeks and will improve our internal communication, external communication, provide more efficient use of our clinicians' time and expertise and allow for more focus and support to our parent programming and overall clinical care.

As with any changes we make or those we consider at Island View, thoughtful introspection will be given to what has made us a leader in our industry, what makes us unique and what it is that allows us to be counted upon by referral sources consistently for the past 14+ years. We believe families and referral sources will notice a more nimble, highly communicative, and internally integrated program as we move forward.

For questions about any of this information, please contact Don Vardell, Executive Director at 866-952-7930 or (cell) 413-320-7425.

Island View RTC is a program of Aspen Education Group, the nation's leading provider of therapeutic education programs for struggling or underachieving young people. Aspen's services range from short-term intervention programs to residential treatment, and include a variety of therapeutic settings such as boarding schools, outdoor behavioral health programs and special needs summer camps, allowing professionals and families the opportunity to choose the best setting to meet a student's unique academic and emotional needs. Aspen is a division of CRC Health Group, the nation's largest chemical dependency and related behavioral health organization. For over two decades, CRC Health has been achieving successful outcomes for individuals and families. For more information, visit www.aspeneducation.com.