Flying Above the Radar

Prior to enrolling at the Oakley School, many of our students have long relied on their excellent verbal and manipulative skills to avoid productivity and investment. Whether it is good grades, exceptional efforts on the sports field, polite interactions with adults or their stated goals to attend college, these strengths offered the opportunity for our students to present positively while in reality they have struggled. They have had difficulty developing healthy relationships with peers, their communication and honesty with their parents has suffered, they may have stumbled with substance abuse, and/or depression and anxiety. On the outside they looked fine, but a closer examination reveals a more complete picture.

One of the common themes of incoming Oakley students is their incredible ability to appear high functioning while things are falling apart around them. Our kids are masters at presenting as "all is well" while masking their struggles. As highly verbal, manipulative and avoidant, our kids demonstrate tremendous skills in regard to their need to appear confident and mature. They are for lack of a better term, "brilliant avoiders."

In order to impact the lives of these unique, bright and capable students, the role of the Oakley School faculty and staff is to create an environment where avoidance is not tolerated or allowed. Relying on the old coping strategy of presenting the external fa�ade that "all is well" becomes quite hard to do in a setting as integrated and connected as the Oakley School.

Our students are exposed to real life challenges that don't exist in most small programs. They are engaging in AP and Honors level course work, playing on sports teams together, working collaboratively on community service projects, engaging in a multitude of group therapy modalities, and they are learning to live with one another. Oakley Students are expected to learn to navigate a whole host of adult and peer relationships within small group settings. In another smaller program these students would quickly learn the nuances of interaction within their program and begin to predict it. We keep our students on their toes and ask them to grow and learn through their experiences.

Daily staff meetings to discuss students who are showing positive or negative patterns, no matter how noteworthy or seemingly insignificant, provide a student's treatment team the information they need to keep our students responsible for living a life of balance. This level of accountability is not always comfortable, but it is the experience that students need in order to make change in their lives. At the Oakley School we bring dedicated professionals together under the same roof operating from the same plan. It is that level of consistency and connectivity that forces our students to develop new ways of approaching challenges and expectations in their lives