Travels in Utah Day Two & Three

We began our second day at Ascend Recovery with Guy Hardcastle in American Fork. Guy explained to us that Ascend was for adults who realized they needed help with their substance use issues or a process issue and were ready to do the clinical work necessary to begin a life of recovery. Ascend is truly competent with clients who have … Read More

Utah Travels Day One

Our trip to Utah is totally packed with program visits, as usual!  We visited New Roads Treatment Center in Provo, Utah.  They have 3 distinct programs within their residential treatment program:  one for men with primary substance and co-occurring mental illness issues called “Path”, one for men with more of a mental health diagnosis but with some substance use called … Read More

The “Contagion” of Suicidal Ideation and How to Interrupt These Thoughts

On October 18th, at the Young Adult Transition Association (YATA) conference, I heard a lecture by an author, Lee Daniel Kravetz, about his book, Strange Contagion: Inside the Surprising Science of Infectious Behaviors and Viral Emotions and What They Tell Us About Ourselves.  He studied “contagion” of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors and wrote a book about it. His idea and … Read More

Western Connecticut Boarding Schools Tour

April 16-19, 2018 Louise and May went on a whirlwind tour of 14 different boarding schools with about 12 other educational consultants. We rode on school buses all week that somehow the kids at schools call “toaster buses” and stayed at the Litchfield Inn. The tour was extremely well organized but incredibly “dense” in terms of information and schools visited. … Read More

Making Sure Aftercare is not an “Afterthought”

IECA National Conference in Boston May 4-7, 2016 One of the breakout sessions I attended at a recent conference was about transition from a therapeutic program to a step down program. This is a topic that is very near and dear to my heart. Why? Prior to becoming a professional educational consultant, I worked in the area of Organizational Development … Read More

Collegiate Recovery: The Texas Trip

We had a great two day tour of The Ranch at Dove Tree (RDT) and the Center for the Study of Addiction and Recovery (CSAR) in Lubbock, Texas. We were really excited when we were invited to attend a “celebration of recovery meeting” with over 100 people our first night there. We watched students receive chips from sponsors, parents, and … Read More

Breakfast at Edventure

Louise and May attended Edventure Childrens Museum’s annual impact breakfast event this morning early… brrr, for South Carolina. Matthew Martin, Regional Executive for the Charlotte Federal Reserve Bank, talked about the “human capital” part of the economy… our segment of the economy! Some of the most important parts of his speech were: *20-40% of students don’t finish high school and … Read More

Travel with May and Louise to Virginia Boarding Schools

This past week were in Virginia visiting boarding schools. We spent our first day touring Chatham Hall and Virginia Episcopal School. When we got to Chatham, the girls were in an assembly doing a presentation on world health for their Leaders in Residence Program. This year, Ashley Judd will be educating the girls on world health. She is very active … Read More

Building Resilience

The 2nd annual YATA (Young Adult Transition Association) Conference was held on the campus of CU Boulder October 8th to 10th. The conference was well attended and was made up of young adult transition program owners, therapists, interventionists, and therapeutic consultants. About 85 programs were represented. Every keynote session and breakout session were valuable and speakers and participants alike were … Read More