Our daughter needed a restart. All of us did. It wasn’t going to happen internally in our family. We needed something outside of our system. She needed something beyond our family that she could see as a 15 year old. Thinking her life was so horrible, we just wanted her to go experience something. I had known about OB for years, and then I saw the Intercept program with the family integration-- the workshops and the current research with the families-- I could hear that you were up to date on the literature and latest research-- Dan Siegel and so on. That was really helpful.

Our family was in crisis. My son had been expelled from his private school. He couldn’t go back to school, he was involved with some low level substance abuse. My aunt said he needed a wilderness school. Our son chose OB.

I was going to choose a regular, shorter program. As soon as I said my son had ADHD, we started talking about Intercept. He wasn’t experimenting with drugs or alcohol or other mental health issues, and didn’t seem to need a more hardcore approach.

My son needed to be removed from his current situation. My son’s brother was declining, and my son was decomposing along with him. I needed my son to take a break because he was getting aggressive and was functioning better away from home than he was at home. He needed a break from the house. A therapist recommended Intercept.

It was a choice between wilderness therapy or Intercept. We decided we needed to do something because we felt like someone was going to have to leave our house and it wasn’t going to be me...we needed a break from each other. WT was more than he needed and longer than we thought he needed to be gone. We chose Outward Bound because it seemed like the right fit.

To us, wilderness therapy felt a bit like sending a soft criminal to prison, where he was going to learn worse tricks. And it’s very expensive! It was going to be $60,000 and an 8 or 9 week minimum. That cost and time was prohibitive.

After we connected with VOBS Student Services, and had a chance to ask questions, we felt like VOBS was the better fit. Background process and questions with VOBS affirmed that the fit was right.

My son seemed like an ideal fit: he wasn’t “too far gone” or down a bad road, but he was dabbling in trouble.

He was seeing a psychologist. The psychologist said Outward Bound would be good for him. We knew he would really like the outdoors. We were in a desperate situation--he was trying to steal alcohol from drug stores and we were just trying to give him a clean break.

There aren’t that many programs that are more preventative. Our options were either Outward Bound or to send him to another program that could get him back to baseline. Outward Bound could get him further. I know from my own OB experience, that it can be life transforming. OB had the biggest potential to give him a boost. The next step down would be wilderness therapy, and the next step would be in-patient treatment. I needed to send a message to my kid that I care about him and he’s capable of more.

He got to work with a team and really had no other choice but to be resilient and was forced to be present.

The theme for my son’s group ended up being anger, which was perfect for him. That was an emotion he was struggling with. My son was one of the younger and smaller people in his group. I’ve been learning a lot about Kazdin - parenting. After you implement behavior strategies, then you need to look at the periphery, the environment of the child’s life. There was something else going on in the periphery of all of the kids that pushed them to a crisis point.

My son was forced into situations in which he was uncomfortable and had to ask for help. For Mr. Perfect, someone who always seems to get by, this was a great opportunity to not be able to avoid the struggle. He had to make decisions for his group, and with his group.

My daughter developed a lot of pride and confidence in what she learned. There were other kids struggling with a lot of issues at home. She could connect with people that in the past she would have judged. That one is huge-- connecting with people that she would have avoided before. This broadens her capacity to realize differences in the world and that people respond to things differently. She has more acceptance for herself. What she thought she saw in herself that she thought was so terrible, she realized it wasn’t that bad. It was important for her to be with people who were suffering, but in a compassionate way.

Regaining self-confidence and being a leader.

The lessons he is learning about himself from the experience keep showing up. We’ll have a disagreement about something...and he will say, 'We need to VOMP!'

Voyageur Outward Bound changed our son.

The staff are well-versed in approaching students in helpful and courageous ways. They are trained in a way that they are well-equipped to meet the kids where they are at and work with them patiently. I was made to feel like everything was OK and not to worry too much. If there is anything that teaches teenagers resilience, an OB course is it.

So much potential to create what you need as a family.

We both got a lot out of it. The parent workbook pushed us to think a lot more about our contributions. It pushed me to think, “What can I do myself to improve our relationship?” We were given a concrete path of what we each needed to do to bring more harmony to our relationship. The goals and steps to continue the work at home, after the course, were really helpful. If we had not had the personal experience and been so involved, I don’t think we would have had the sustained positive outcome we’ve had. To be confronted with the fact that we all had to improve, was the most beneficial. It was as important for us as it was for our son.

The program gave us some separation from my son and allowed me to see him as a separate person and not someone I am trying to control. I realized I didn’t have to FIX. At the end of the Seminar when he messed up (smoking cigarette butts the last night), I was distraught. I was asking his instructor Anna, “What should I do?” and Anna said, “Do nothing.” That was a huge moment for me.

Small Group is the most important part of the Family Seminar. Connecting with other parents was the best part, “same song, different verse.” You all understand family dynamics a little more. The stories that my son shared have been more powerful because I know a bit more about what other families have been through.

I’m a clinician and I have a Masters degree in S.W. and we were still struggling. I use the Outward Bound CFOR (assertive feedback tool) with my clients and I teach them how to use it. My communication skills and ours as a family have improved so much. We have figured out how to stop yelling. The other day my son’s girlfriend came over and was talking about a fight with her parents. He responded, “My parents and I don’t fight. We don’t always see eye to eye, but we don’t fight.” Instead he says, “We need to sit down and have family meetings and figure out expectations.

There’s a sense of calm in him now. When he struggles, he heads for the woods. Nature is a way of balancing himself out.

Our son just got into a private school for high school. He wrote an essay about Outward Bound that said, 'I learned that I have a voice and I need to use it.' This is a kid who hates school and never wanted to go to college. Now he says, 'this private school will help get me into college.'

Starting the path to healing. So much of a need for healing with the relationships with the family.

I was surprised that my son made it through the expedition. He’s got a job now and has been able to keep it.

We just had an experience where our son snuck out on Mother’s Day. When he came home in the middle of the night, I was sitting there in his room and I told him, 'You know you’re 18; you could have just said you are leaving.' Then I told my story about when I was 18 and snuck out. Now I work to teach instead of trying to fix the problem.

You do use therapeutic tools in your program. You are building a teamwork feeling between the child and the parent.

My son ended up modelling relapse for all the parents and students when he smoked on the last night of our Family Seminar. On the way home my son said, 'If that wouldn’t have happened, I would have missed the point. I would have taken the Outward Bound pin and graduated.' This happening as part of the program was the most powerful part.

The physical aspect does a ton for self esteem and self image. Group aspect is powerful. Value taking kids out of their environment and bringing them together, away from technology to focus on emotions.

Increased confidence. The goals VOBS stated on their website and during the interview process were exactly what we were looking for, and exactly what he got out of the program.

Communication. That night, when we were staying in a hotel before flying out the next day, he was talking about those skills a lot and wanting to practice those with us. How to communicate in a way that wouldn’t result in too much emotions and shutting down. Remaining more calm and productive.

I work with a team of 17 technical school social workers. Over lunch I shared my experience and what we had gone through. The goal was to learn how to trust, and “parent” differently. I see things so differently now: we almost set our children up for distrust by micromanaging. We see them with their hand on the cookie in the cookie jar and immediately ask, “Are you eating that cookie?” Of course they are going to have shame and vulnerability. I learned ‘put it out there’ with friends and family--that my kid was expelled from a private school with a great scholarship. All those parents of kids he grew up with-- I have really tried to dig deep with other parents and share my story with them and not be embarrassed by it. Trying to be perfect is a mistake. The more we can be vulnerable and work to learn, the more we can teach our children to do it too. I was embarrassed with my own parents because I didn’t want to look like a bad parent. That has changed too.

Very easily fits into a continuum of care. Kids could enter into it at different points in their therapeutic journey. Some might be in therapy for a while and might be stuck, not making progress. Intercept could help.

Jumpstart for someone who has hit a plateau in their process. [Intercept] gives the parent and child a respite from each other.

We need more professionals to know about this. People don’t always know that Outward Bound is possible for struggling kids; I always thought OB was for high achieving kids as opposed to kids that were struggling.

One of my children is receiving what they call “wraparound services”-- OT, speech, PT, in addition to his education which is taught in a customized way. OB offers wraparound services in a more realistic environment. It also offers some artificial challenges that can’t be done in the clinical environment as safely. You can also put pressure where you think it is going to be the most helpful. Accelerated intensity that zones in on where the kids need support and need to make improvements.

There are times when a crisis happens and someone needs to be removed from the situation and OB is helpful for that as well.

Intercept is very well aligned with therapeutic practices. After they are stabilized. It totally depends on the presenting problem. A step down from inpatient could be great, but on a case by case basis, base it on their stability.

My son was doing outpatient mental health. He could still hide. It was very easy for him to not put his crap on the table. Intercept forces the kids to take it to the next level. They have to dig deep and face whatever demons they have inside and figure out how to deal with them.

As a provider sometimes you think, What if I could just get them a break from this parent for a little while? Here that can happen, and the parent is also able to do their own work in the meantime.