Struggling Teen Boarding School, Boarding School for Troubled Teens

CanAdventure Education offers the Hero's Quest, a wilderness-based struggling teen school program that creates an alternative to boarding schools for troubled teens. If you are seeking a struggling teen boarding school in Canada and having trouble finding a placement with enough focus on personal growth and character development, we may be the answer. We are located in British Columbia, Canada.

CanAdventure Education believes that every struggling teen that comes to us is on a hero's journey to discover themselves. Our Hero's Quest program is a struggling teen boarding school alternative that guides troubled teens on this journey, providing them with the personal growth, knowledge, skills, mentorship, confidence, and experience they need to emerge and acknowledge their true heroic selves.

The Hero's Quest struggling teen school program blends CanAdventure Education's holistic Struggling Teen Journey personal growth programming with academic work though distance education, community service, leadership training, and family workshops to allow participants to go beyond that which is offered at most boarding schools for troubled teens. Focus areas consist of:
~ Personal growth,
~ Academic study sessions,
~ Environmental studies,
~ Wilderness expeditions,
~ Leadership training, including industry-related certifications,
~ Community service,
~ Individual and group therapeutic focus sessions, and
~ Family workshops.

Personal Growth
CanAdventure Education believes strongly that each individual possesses a unique potential and that the key to unleashing this potential lies in character development. Character development requires a commitment to higher principles and to seeking a vision in life that defines responsibility to self, to others, and to leaving the world a better place. Participants in the Hero’s Quest struggling teen school program complete daily reflection activities and workshops that focus on internalizing positive virtues and social and personal responsibility. Participants are challenged to discover and harness their potential through experiences that push them beyond their comfort zones physically, emotionally, and mentally. Mentors work with participants on a daily basis nurturing relationships based on a foundation of open and honest communication. Mentoring principles are based on community and on creating a culture of character that is based on honesty, attitude, valuing success, and allowing challenges to become opportunities.

Academic Study Sessions
Participants in our Hero's Quest struggling teen school program must be registered with the South Island Distance Education School (SIDES) or a comparable distance education program in your home region. SIDES is a distributed learning school that allows students to complete their work through correspondence and offers all graduation requirements in the Province of British Columbia. The SIDES program is free for youth with a fixed address in BC and also serves out-of-province students for a fee. In addition, SIDES grants our graduates a total of 8 credits for work that they complete during their wilderness programming with us; 4 for Outdoor Education 11 and 4 for Environmental Science 11. Most provinces and states have similar distance education programs available to their residents at no cost. CanAdventure Education's certified teachers and instructors work in partnership with distance education schools to ensure smooth and effective delivery of their course packages.

For more information on SIDES, go to http://www.sides.ca/

Environmental Studies
The developed world in which we live largely ignores the need for connection with nature. Many factors contribute to the trend that Richard Louv so compellingly describes as “nature deficit disorder.” The terrain that our young people traverse is dominated more and more by indoor focus and technology. CanAdventure Education believes that connections to self, others, and to nature are necessary ingredients to a healthy life. Hero’s Quest participants work through Level 1 of The Kamana Naturalist Training Program - a four level study program that covers the naturalist background needed to engage in the wilderness arts, including tracking, bird language, survival and native living skills, traditional herbalism, and naturalist mentoring. In the spirit of fostering stewardship and care-taking, the Hero’s Quest struggling teen school program believes that a playful, meaningful connection with nature is a fundamental ingredient to fostering respect, connection, responsibility, and self-awareness.

Wilderness Expeditions
Youth are looking for something to believe in and that will inspire them. The wilderness and its beauty, mystery, and capacity for healing gives Hero’s Quest participants the time to slow down and experience the simple things in life that are important: community, family, trust, kindness, care for self and others, living in the moment, being safe, being honest, and the interconnectedness of all living things. Wilderness expeditions within the Hero’s Quest struggling teen school program present the opportunity for youth to experience these concepts instead of simply being told about them. Wilderness experiences help participants get the perspective they need in life to apply their leadership skills, creative thinking, passion, and determination to succeed within their homes, schools, and communities. Expeditions are used as a vessel to gently push participants into the realm of exploring the edges of their comfort zones, awareness, and knowledge. Participants discover healthy risk taking, teamwork, and self-reliance in some of the world’s most inspirational natural settings.

Leadership Training
The Hero's Quest struggling teen school program includes CanAdventure Education's Leaders-in-Training curriculum, emphasizing the development of outdoor leadership skills in an adventure-learning context and offering a balance of formal training, mentoring, and practical hands-on experience. This aspect of our struggling teen school program includes a combination of theory and hands-on practice in eco-tourism industry skills, including adventure education, leadership, cultural interpretation, wilderness skills, risk management, trip planning, as well as certification in food service, water rescue and first aid. By incoporating leadership training, the Hero's Quest struggling teen school program provides training, mentorship, and on-the-job experience that positions troubled teens for the next steps in an eco-tourism and/or youth programming career.

Community Service
Learning to give back to the communities in which we live is an important aspect of social and personal responsibility. Our Hero's Quest struggling teen school program is involved in the planning and delivery of volunteer service projects in our local communities, helping to develop character, self esteem, and the value of selflessness among our troubeld teens.

Therapeutic Focus Sessions
CanAdventure Education's core experiential curriculum is complimented by Therapeutic Focus Sessions designed to provide interventions for youth experiencing behavior challenges. Sessions, which may include workshops on family issues, anger management, drug and alcohol abuse, physical and sexual abuse, and suicide and self-harm, allow the therapeutic value of the existing core adventure education program for struggling teens to be maximized. Therapeutic Focus Sessions are developed, delivered, and overseen by minimum Masters-level Counsellors.

Family Involvement
It takes a village to raise a child and at the core of the village is family. If the success that participants achieve while at CanAdventure is to continue in the home environment it is vitally important that parents understand and strive to maintain the character traits within themselves and their homes that are at the core of CanAdventure Education’s philosophy. As such, CanAdventure Education believes that regular family involvement is key to the success of our participants. We invite family members and other significant supporters to be involved in the Hero's Quest program by attending family workshops and focus sessions and by completing family packages at home. These are geared toward establishing empathy and common ground in a healthy and pro-active manner and providing strategies and perspectives that will result in positive impacts for those involved.

CanAdventure Education uses the internationally recognized and award-winning Triple-P Positive Parenting Program. Backed by over 25 years of clinicaly proven research, Triple P is a system of easy to implement, proven parenting solutions that helps solve current parenting problems and prevents future problems before they arise. For more information on Triple P, click here...

Family workshops and focus sessions may include:
~ Family retreats and weekend workshops
~ Suggested reading material and activities
~ Regular phone calls
~ Psycho-educational group workshops
~ Family counseling sessions

Flexible Length of Stay
CanAdventure Education Hero’s Quest program is a longer-term program that requires a minimum one-term commitment (approximately 3-months). The average length of stay is two terms, or six months, after which there is usually a readiness for next steps such as a return home, mainstream boarding school, or other follow-up programming. CanAdventure recognizes that people learn in different ways and at different rates. As such, each participant's time in our Hero's Quest program varies according to their needs. Through our flexible individualized learning program and small group sizes, each participant is given the support and attention they need to progress at their own pace. For information on the four phases of the Hero's Quest, our struggling teen boarding school alternative, click here...

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For more information, please call us or email our admissions office...