Like many programs of our type, students progress through a series of stages, each signifying a particular focus of therapeutic intervention and mastery of earlier stages.  Our stage system is loosely based on literature supporting the importance of proper timing in intervention and instruction, supplying what is needed when it can be used.  There are four stages of therapeutic focus that the students progress through at Summit Preparatory School.  Each of these stages are summarized below:

STAGE 1:  Orientation & Evaluation

The first stage focuses on helping the student to settle in with peers and the routine.  The staff will evaluate and define both student resources and the tasks at hand regarding the student’s issues, as well as confirm that the those issues can be adequately addressed at Summit Preparatory School.

 

STAGE 2:  Skill & Knowledge Aquisition

The second stage focuses on providing students with the opportunity to learn about themselves, their feelings, and how they cope with them.  The students also form an understanding of how families work and the part they play within their family.  Students are expected to learn and develop skills in communication and problem solving, and form a clear understanding of their own personal psychological development.

 

STAGE 3:  Application & Processing

The third stage focuses on allowing students to apply, refine, and model the skills learned in the previous levels.  Students are also expected to practice conflict resolution and leadership skills within their team and involve themselves to a higher degree within the larger student community.  Similarly, the self-skills learned and practiced in Stage 2 are applied in the student's family work, and the family therapy becomes more focused.

 

STAGE 4:  Consolidation & Transitional Preparation

The final stage focuses both on enabling time for the student to consolidate and fine-tune the gains they have made so far, while also preparing them for the next step after Summit Preparatory School.  Increased responsibility and freedom allow students to reinforce the skills they have learned throughout the previous three levels, and apply them in situations similar to those they will experience after graduation from the program.

Privileges are not exclusively tied to the stage system.  Each privilege has a set of requirements that the student must meet before he or she will be considered by their treatment team for that privilege.  Because the stage of therapeutic focus is only one of many possible logical requirements, students at the same stage will not necessarily have the same compliment of privileges.

Privileges are viewed as an earned opportunity to practice new relational and physical skills, and as a concrete representation of the level of trust between a student and his/her treatment team.  While stages are only earned and never lost, privileges may be given and removed based on a student’s behavior as an act of recognition of the student’s ability or inability to manage that privilege at that particular time (as opposed to a general statement of character).  This allows recognition of appropriate or inappropriate behavior to be focused, clear, and logical.