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Recognition of advancement is a crucial component to motivating students and consolidating progress. The Summit ModelTM accomplishes this through four program stages that promote the mastery of essential psychosocial maturity skills that build upon one another. Progress is measured on each stage via benchmarks that demonstrate the student's development of these skills across the following dimensions in their life: Maturity; Personal Success; Academic Achievement; Psychological/Emotional/Relational Strength; and Family Relationships.
STAGE 1: Orientation & Evaluation
Summit Prep’s first stage is designed to promote an adolescent’s ability to self soothe by supporting students in settling into the program and learning how to “tolerate” (but not circumvent) reasonable, non-punitive structure through supportive, trusting relationships with staff. This is also the time for us to get to know each student personally, assess the skills and resources each student brings to the tasks at hand, and identify the goals that will focus the student’s program at Summit Prep.
STAGE 2: Fundamentals
Summit Prep’s second stage is designed to encourage students to develop meaningful relationships with staff and peers - relationships that promote mutual trust and a willingness by the student to explore positive passions and strengths in their life; and also to begin to work through relational and personal issues and problems. Reinforcing (and sometimes repairing) relationships with parents and family also takes a more active focus in stage two and continues throughout the rest of the adolescent’s stay.
STAGE 3: Application & Processing
Through encouragement and a positive identification with staff, mature peers, and family – students in stage three actively refine, apply and incorporate the skills and structure they have learned into their daily lives. This includes demonstrating maturity in their team and the larger student community (through positive leadership); and also applying the skills they have learned in reinforcing (and sometimes reestablishing) their place positively within their family.
STAGE 4: Consolidation & Transitional Preparation
The final stage is one of consolidation of a student’s progress through reinforcing and testing their resolve and ability to live up to their goals and values in life (based on a strong personal sense of self identity) – even when faced with difficult circumstances. This includes planning carefully for life after Summit Prep (including developing a comprehensive aftercare plan) and testing their ability to recover quickly from setbacks (resiliency) as they adjust to increased responsibility and autonomy in the program. The ability to empathize is also reinforced and actively practiced (as empathy reinforces identity development and resiliency).
Privileges are not exclusively tied to the stage system. Some privileges are granted based on the student's ability to safely participate in the activities (especially activities designed to reinforce the development of healthy relationships with staff and peers); and other privileges have 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 (because they recognize qualitatively a student's personal progress in learning psychosocial maturity skills); privileges may be given and temporarily removed based on a student’s behavior (as everyone makes mistakes in life). This allows staff and students to focus on the behavior in the "here and now" in a focused, clear and logical manner, without it being misunderstood as a statement regarding the student's overall progress.
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