Author Topic: Montana Academy  (Read 3701 times)

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Offline Anonymous

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Montana Academy
« on: July 11, 2007, 03:03:31 PM »
Does anyone have any solid information about John Santa or the Montana Academy?  :question:
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Offline Anonymous

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Montana Academy
« Reply #1 on: July 11, 2007, 03:10:14 PM »
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Offline Anonymous

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Montana Academy
« Reply #2 on: July 11, 2007, 03:17:10 PM »
Quote
The academy’s main campus houses 70 students from all over the United States. An inescapable fact—for a private boarding school with nine therapists on staff—is that the students are, as one teacher puts it, “from the top 10 percent of wealth in the country.” On the surface, the academy can feel like an extended summer camp for the extremely privileged, complete with horseback riding, fly fishing, and winter skiing. But these students are not only atypically wealthy, they are also highly intelligent, and—when they arrive—highly dysfunctional.

As Santa says, “Many of these kids have been out of school for quite a while—a year, sometimes more. And many of them had completely shut down. They wouldn’t get out of bed, or maybe they got into drugs, or they were suicidal. A lot of them have already been through several other programs, and a lot of therapy.”

Many of the students also arrive heavily medicated, with multiple diagnoses—depression, bipolar, ADHD, OCD, addiction—and case folders a foot thick. But from the beginning, Santa’s approach is unorthodox. “To be honest, I usually don’t pay too much attention to the case files. In a setting like ours, most students, such as those classified with ADHD or learning disabilities, begin to succeed in school. And we also try to get most students off medications as soon as possible.”

For most students, Santa says, a structured, supportive environment, and the calm, quiet pace of life on the ranch can do wonders. “We try to slow them down, slow everything down: no TV, no cell phones, no iPods, no Internet except for supervised use in the library. Kids who are troubled need a lot of structure and a minimum of distractions. Once you get them into a structured, supportive environment and away from all those distractions, kids begin to grow up and realize they can become successful young adults. We provide a safe place for students to mature.”
Quote

http://www.nwrel.org/nwedu/12-01/lessons/print/
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Offline Anonymous

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Montana Academy
« Reply #3 on: July 11, 2007, 11:38:58 PM »
From HEAL:

"Montana Academy is suspected of being an abusive behavior modification program.  They have disabled their online application so we can’t see what they require in terms of signing away legal and civil rights for parents and children.  However, based on their description as of 2/16/04 on their program description under “emotional” they describe a “phase system” (aka level system) which echoes those used by WWASPS and Provo Canyon School.  They also talk about group sessions in which the goal is “psychological development” through revelation.  These words are very abstract and ring as echoes of the descriptions and values of the Resource Realizations/WWASPS model of trauma-based behavior modification.  If you have attended Montana Academy and you were abused or had your rights violated by Montana Academy while in their care, please contact us and we will add your online testimonial to this website as a warning to others. "
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Offline nimdA

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Montana Academy
« Reply #4 on: July 11, 2007, 11:50:13 PM »
John Santa was the President of NATSAP for the last year as well. Wasn't it he who pushed for the Beheren report?

Where is Debs when you need her. She knows all about the guy.
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am the metal pig.

Offline Anonymous

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Montana Academy
« Reply #5 on: July 12, 2007, 01:10:49 AM »
Quote
They have disabled their online application


Can't fathom why. :lol:
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Offline Anonymous

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Montana Academy
« Reply #6 on: July 12, 2007, 06:12:00 AM »
Prolly the same person who nuked Lon's electronic voting thingie.  :lol:
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Offline Ursus

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Re: Montana Academy
« Reply #7 on: December 19, 2008, 02:04:41 AM »
Montana Academy was founded in 1997 by two couples: John & Rosemary McKinnon and John & Carol Santa. John McKinnon just came out with a book, presumably based--at least in part--on the "philosophy" practiced at Montana Academy:

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Posted: Dec 16, 2008
Montana Academy
Marion, MT

John Mekinnon Book "An Unchanged Mind" Now Available

Contact:
Kelly Gesker
406-858-2339,
http://www.montanaacademy.com

December 10, 2008

Dear Colleagues,

I write to tell you personally that at last the book I have been writing for years- About the struggle of troubled teenagers to grow up-has become available.
The process is longer than I had imagined. And so I have waited to let you know that I have learned the actual printed books actually had arrived at the Lantern Books' Warehouse. They are there. A copy now can be ordered on-line or by phone, and it will be sent to you promptly.

It's done!

I hope you will think it was worth waiting for.
Warm regards,

John


An Unchanged Mind
The Problem of Immaturity in Adolescence
By, John A. McKinnon, MD
ISBN: 978-1-59056-124-9
$23


An Unchanged Mind begins with a clinical riddle:
Why are American teenagers failing to develop normally through adolescence?
We are presented with case studies from a therapeutic boarding school for troubled teenagers: All new students had been deemed treatment "failures" after conventional psychiatric care. All were bright teenagers, full of promise, not obviously "ill." Yet they found themselves unprepared for the challenges of modern adolescence and inevitably failed-at school, at home, and among their peers socially.

An Unchanged Mind is the discovery of the essence of this problem- disrupted maturation and resulting immaturity. The book explains the problem carefully, with a brief review of normal development and an examination of the delays today's teenagers are suffering: the causes of those delays and how they produce a flawed approach to living.

There is a solution. With a sustained push to help troubled kids catch up, symptoms abate, academic and interpersonal functioning improve, and many parents pronounce their teens miraculously recovered. This remedy is not a matter of pharmacology - and the cure is not in pills. The remedy is, instead, to grow up.

To order: 1-800-856-8664 or http://www.lanternbooks.com

Copyright © 2007, Woodbury Reports, Inc.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
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Offline Ursus

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Re: Montana Academy article
« Reply #8 on: December 19, 2008, 12:41:43 PM »
Here is an undated article from a local paper. I suspect it is from not more than a few years ago, perhaps even from this past year. The link is a pdf, so I wasn't able to include the pics. However, I included the image captions, since they contribute some more information.

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The gift of a better life
Montana Academy students reflect on lessons learned at remote school.
By LYNNETTE HINTZE
The Daily Inter Lake


Does Santa Claus exist?

Prove it.

That was instructor Jason Rasco's directive on Wednesday to the nine students in his writing class at Montana Academy near Marion. They had just two minutes to draft the persuasive essay, then were tasked to write about the opposite viewpoint: Prove Santa doesn't exist. Griffin, 17, was the one of the first to offer his argument against St. Nick.

"There's no sleigh on Earth that has the gas mileage, the speed and the handling to complete the task of delivering presents to every child," he maintained.

"With gas prices where they are today, Santa just would not have the means to purchase that much petroleum."

Brett, 16, took a practical approach to explaining Santa's realness, pointing to tangible evidence. Cookies and milk disappear on the eve of his arrival; presents appear.

    (IMAGE)
MARY HUGS her friend Wes Laws after graduating from Montana Academy on Friday morning. “I am going to miss this place so much.” says Mary, who is going to study in France next year. “I’ve never had so many people mean so much to me."[/list]
Writing persuasive essays is one of many exercises Rasco steps his students through with the goal of not only teaching writing skills but also helping the teens express their opinions and their feelings. Students spent the last half of Wednesday's class doing the final editing on their personal essays. The essay topic - Christmas memories - seems benign enough, but for the teens in crisis at this residential therapeutic school, those memories are often a mishmash of bitter and sweet.

The therapeutic effects of writing are "pretty amazing," Rasco said. "I tell them writing will be one of the most intimate things they'll do in life," he said.

    (IMAGE)
CAROL SANTA, right, walks with her student Caroline to the Montana Academy’s horse barn for a final horse ride before Caroline’s graduation.[/list]
Andrew, 16, used his essay to tackle some of the grief that brought him to the remote boarding school in the first place. He was just 10 when his father died suddenly of a heart attack right before Christmas. "It was tough," he recalled. "It still is, but getting it [the grief] out makes it easier."

Andrew has a large, supportive family in San Francisco that he's looking forward to reconnecting with when he returns home this week. He's graduating from the academy after a 20-month stay.  It wasn't drugs, alcohol or delinquent behavior that brought him to the Marion-area ranch - It was the unresolved grief of his father's death. He felt driven to take care of his mother and his older autistic brother. "I just needed a break," he said. Andrew will rejoin his high school class, and after graduation in 2007, he's eyeing Stanford University. He wants a career in medical research.

    (IMAGE)
DURING A GROUP therapy session at the Montana Academy, Tommy listens to his fellow team members tell him what they think his challenges will be in the upcoming semester.[/list]
John, a 17-year-old from Kentucky, arrived at Montana Academy six months ago burdened with the guilt he felt over the suicides of two of his closest friends. Substance abuse added layers of problems to his life. "I started drinking when I was 11," he said. "I started [drinking] to feel more comfortable and normal." John plunged into drug and alcohol abuse after the suicides of his friends. He spent 11 weeks at a wilderness treatment program in Georgia, and when he got in trouble there for lying, he made a choice to set his life back on track. "I was sick and tired of being sick and tired," he said. The opportunity to work with his parents as he goes through the treatment program has been the best part of his Montana Academy experience so far. He's also getting in touch with his emotions. "I'm more of an intellect, but I've been working on feeling more," he said. "I met a friend here who's more emotional. We help each other out."

    (IMAGE)
A student hangs out in the library. Although most of their days are structured, students still have some down time.[/list]
    (IMAGE)
Sean and Joe sit during an exercise near the end of their final therapy session of the semester at Montana Academy.[/list]
Christmas came early for the 20 students - the largest graduating class to date who celebrated the completion of their stay at Montana Academy with a commencement ceremony Friday morning.

Leah, 15, was both excited and nervous about getting back to the California city in which she was raised. "I don't like nature that much," she confided. "I'm excited to go back to the city." She came to Montana Academy 15 months ago with a drug-abuse problem and some family issues. "I was basically growing up too fast," she said. "Before I came here I didn't like adults or authority."

Leah didn't ask for anything this Christmas, but she got what she wanted - and needed - a relationship with her family.

Family is the integral ingredient in the academy's success. Parents come to the ranch for a rigorous interview to see if they're a proper fit for the program. "We really select for parents," medical director Dennis Malinak said. The bottom line is that parents must become involved in their children's treatment.

    (IMAGE)
Team leader Dave Hartman laughs with his students from left, Bo, Erik, Ben, Evan and Mike while looking at photos from the semester. Students at the school are divided into teams that work together to help each other through the program.[/list]
Founded by John & Rosemary McKinnon and John and Carol Santa in 1997, the academy has become one of the premier treatment programs for teens by combining an emotional growth curriculum (designed for youths with psychological problems) with a dual academic curriculum. It has graduated about 300 teenagers since it opened. Not all 300 are success stories. Most of the alumni struggle at first when they leave the comfortable and secure environment of the ranch. "We've tried to survey all of them," John Santa said, "And we got a 60 percent response. Most of them are doing real well." If academy alumni resume the use of drugs and alcohol, "they'll take a stumble," John McKinnon said. "But they'll get back up."

    (IMAGE)
Montana Academy students sit in Phil Jones’ literature class Wednesday morning. The Academy uses a powerful natural setting, and then places students of all ages together in the classroom and therapy sessions.[/list]
Hardly a day goes by that Dr. Malinak doesn't hear from one of the alumni or the students' parents, he said, reading an appreciative note in a Christmas card from one of his former students. Team leader Mary'l Luntsford said she still gets a call every two months from a student who graduated from the academy six years ago. “It's a big part of their past,” she said, “and an integral bridge to their future.”

    (IMAGE)
Graduation Day recognizes students’ completion of the emotional growth program. Some students earn their high school diploma as well.[/list]
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
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Offline Oscar

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Re: Montana Academy
« Reply #9 on: December 19, 2008, 03:33:17 PM »
When I searched information so Rotsne could update the datasheet, I took a minute to survey the facebook group of survivors.

I found this thread

Quote
.... Then I got it right. I went through MA and was at the transition house for 8 months. I didn't want to leave but they made me graduate since my folks cut the funding.

It is not emotional growth or progress but money that make kids graduate this program - only lack of money.
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Offline Ursus

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Re: Montana Academy - some pertinent bios
« Reply #10 on: December 20, 2008, 04:02:51 PM »
Quote from: "Oscar"
It is not emotional growth or progress but money that make kids graduate this program - only lack of money.

This program isn't the only one that uses criteria like that!

Here are some pertinent bios (Founders, Medical Director) mentioned in the article from my previous post... Incidentally, the "group photo" for that Facebook group you posted a link to, Oscar, is that of Medical Director/Clinical Supervisor Dennis Malinek. They must really not like him!

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JOHN MCKINNON

Position:
Clinical Director and Founder
 
Education:
  • BA (1968) magna cum laude, English Literature, Phi Beta Kappa, Harvard College
  • MA (1970) Economics, Cambridge University (U.K.)
  • MD (1975) Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine (Cleveland)
  • Resident Training--Adult and Adolescent Psychiatry (1978), Yale University School of Medicine
  • MFA (1992)Fiction, Norwhich University.
Experience:
  • 1978-1986 Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Associate Director of Resident Training, UC (San Francisco) Department of Psychiatry; Director, Outpatient Psychiatric Services, San Francisco VA Medical Center.
  • 1986-1990 Clinical Director, Charter Hospital (80 beds) of Ft Worth, TX, and Director, Adolescent Program (40 bed psychiatry and CD unit).
  • 1990-Clinical Director, Willow Creek (Adolescent) Hospital, Arlington, TX.
  • 1986-1990 Cofounder, Psychiatric Medicine Associates, a multidisciplinary practice in Ft Worth, TX.
  • 1990- Private Practice, Adolescent and Adult Psychiatry, Kalispell, MT
  • 1993- Medical Director, Pathways Treatment Center, a 40-bed Psyciatric/CD unit of Kalispell Regional Medical Center.
  • 1996- Cofounder, Board Member, Northwest Psychiatric Services, an outpatient clinical network, Kalispell, MT.
  • 1997-present Co-Founder, Clinical Director, Montana Academy.

Favorite Thing:
    There are many things that I love about Montana Academy. I'll list a few. First, creating Montana Academy started with an act of imagination, a picture in our minds, and every day we add to this dream of the school we’re trying to build. It’s a fortunate person whose work calls for creativity, for creative work closely resembles what small children do when they play. Bringing this imagined school to life, transforming the idea into the reality of a school filled with wonderful young people working and playing and learning and growing up and sorting out their lives on this Montana ranch--feels a lot like any other work of creation, and resembles the experience of a kid building a sand castle or a poet at work on a poem. Second, working here has been an experience rich in anthropology. It’s also felt, these past three years, like landing on a deserted island with a team of variously competent adults and a gaggle of bright, beautiful, promising young people to create a brave new world from scratch. As with all utopias, this one has its peculiarities and tensions, its clashes of aery ideals with muddy realities. But few challenges have ever so fully engaged my imagination or ambition or willingness to work. This, too, has been a lucky thing. Third, I like the school’s students and parents and our staff. I have, at moments, lost my temper, but never have enrolled a student I couldn’t like and care about. Nor do we choose students whose parents we don’t like. And I’ve been delighted with the splendid staff we’ve assembled. To work with such fine people--all of them, students and parents and staff--has been a lucky thing and a pleasure. Finally, I love western Montana in general and Lost Prairie in particular. I like working on a remote ranch. Sometimes, “commuting” home on a back road, I‘ve stopped my Suburu in the middle of Lost Trail Ranch (now a federal bird sanctuary) to watch a pair of hunting eagles or elk grazing on a hillside, and I’ve shut off the engine so I could listen to migrating geese honking overhead. I have climbed out of the car to look up into an awesome night sky and have known for certain I was the luckiest shrink in America.


ROSEMARY MCKINNON

Position:
Director of Admissions and Founder

Education:
    BA/MA Cambridge University Arabic and Farsi Social Anthropology MSW Case Western Reserve University

Experience:
    After 30 years of private practice treating children, adolescents and families I helped to found Montana Academy.  I have taken the position of Director of Admissions and have the privilege of choosing both students and families for the school
 
Favorite Thing:
    I enjoy the privelege of choosing both students and families who are likely to benefit most from all that we have to offer and then to watching their progress while on campus and take pride in their succeses.


JOHN SANTA

Position:
Clinical Director & Founder

Education:
  • BA Whitman College Psychology
  • MS Psychology, Purdue University
  • PhD Psychology, Purdue University
  • Postdoctorate Cognitive Psychology, Stanford University
  • Postdoctorate, Clinical Psychology, University of Montana
  • Postdoctorate Clinical Psychology, University of California (S.D.) with specialty training in clinical neuropsychology and child psychology.
Experience:
  • Associate Professor, Rutgers University Department of Psychology, author of 30+ papers and chapters re: cognition, memory, learning and education.
  • Consultant to National Diffusion Network, Project CRISS; Project First Steps-- Early Reading Intervention Program; Kalispell Head Start
  • 1981- Board Memberships: Child Abuse Prevention Council; Gateway Educational Products Research Advisory Board; Team Concepts Advisory Board; Flathead Valley Community College Board of Trustees (member and Chairman).
  • Member of National Association Board of Directors and President of the association
  • 1986- Private Practice, Clinical Psychology
  • 1996- Founding President and Board Member, Northwest Psychiatric Services, an outpatient network in Kalispell, MT
Favorite Thing:
    I love working with these kids and our families. Watching adolescents turn the corner and come to appreciate who they truly are and reconnect with their families is very rewarding.


CAROL SANTA

Position:
Director of Education and Founder

Education:
    BA Cum Laude in Psychology, Whitman College MS Elementary Education, Purdue University PhD Educational Psychology and Psychology of Reading, Temple University.

Experience:
  • Public school teacher
  • College professor at Rutgers University
  • Curriculum Coordinator for Kalispell Public Schools.
  • Published 50+ articles and seven professional books in education and is author of a K-6 reading curriculum used in public schools throughout the country.
  • Developer of Project CRISS (creating independence through student-owned Strategies), a program for helping middle school and high school students become more proficient readers, writers, and learners. Over the past five years the project has been used by 60,000 teachers in 33 states and internationally in Europe and the Middle East. (For more information contact http://www.projectcriss.com)
Favorite Thing:
    As an educator, I have always dreamed of developing a school which incorporates the best in education within a therapeutic environment. I am surrounded by caring staff and remarkable students.


DENNIS MALINEK

Position:
Medical Director/ Clinical Supervisor
 
Education:
  • M.D., Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
  • Residency Training – Adult & Adolescent Psychiatry, Langley Porter Institute, University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine
  • B.S. Psychology, Michigan State University
Experience:
  • Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Director, Adolescent Inpatient Service, Langley Porter Institute, UCSF Medical Center
  • Medical Director, Braun Programs, Marin County, California – adolescent residential and day treatment facility
  • Private Practice, Adult & Adolescent Psychiatry, Marin County, CA
  • Medical Director, Glacier View Psychiatric Hospital, Kalispell, MT
  • Director of Adolescent Services, Shodair Hospital, Helena, MT
  • Medical Director, Children’s Comprehensive Services, Butte, MT – residential treatment center for children and adolescents
  • Private Practice, Adult & Adolescent Psychiatry, Kalispell and Helena, MT
Favorite Thing:
    The opportunity to know and learn from and be part of the lives of such wonderful young men and women; to be in a community where the work involves living the ideals which we hold most dear – honesty, personal responsibility, acceptance and tolerance, kindness; to be in the best job of my career at this time in my life.
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Offline psy

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Re: Montana Academy
« Reply #11 on: December 20, 2008, 04:39:24 PM »
Doesn't santa have something to do with either HLA or NATSAP itself, IIRC?
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Offline Ursus

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Re: Montana Academy
« Reply #12 on: December 21, 2008, 12:03:57 PM »
Quote from: "psy"
Doesn't santa have something to do with either HLA or NATSAP itself, IIRC?

This may well not be the whole of it, but John Santa was one of the founding Directors of NATSAP, and the momentum for establishing NATSAP was funded in part by Hidden Lake Academy's Len Buccellato. John Santa was also the President of NATSAP for a time until this past year (I'm assuming this position rotates amongst them).

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News & Views  - Apr, 1999 Issue #57
NATSAP LAUNCHED
By: Lon Woodbury

Jan. 29, 1999 (Albuquerque, New Mexico) The first formal step in forming a wide based association of alternative schools and programs working with children with behavioral/emotional problems was taken this Friday with the organizational meeting of The National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs (NATSAP). The meeting in Albuquerque attracted about 100 professionals representing 43 schools and programs. Most of the attendees were there to find out what the proposed organization was all about.

This meeting was the result of an earlier exploratory meeting held in Atlanta, Georgia, November 8, 1998 the day after the Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA) conference in the same city. The Atlanta exploratory meeting had been called by John Reddan, who had written a paper outlining the size and scope of a possible association and asked for and received $5500 from Len Buccellato and Hidden Lake Academy in Dahlonega, Georgia to travel to ten programs in nine states and to host the meeting at the Atlanta Hilton. The Albuquerque meeting was opened by a presentation by John Reddan outlining the parameters of what is commonly perceived as a new developing industry working with children with behavioral/emotional problems and based on parent choice. Surveying 120 schools and programs he considered “in the loop,” representing a wide variety of approaches, Redden pointed out there has been a six-fold increase in the number of these schools and programs since 1970. These schools and programs currently are working with more than 7,000 students annually with 1/3 of a billion dollars in revenue. Noting that the six-fold increase shows this new industry is rising to meet the increased demand, he estimated there are “at least 200,000 adolescents in America right now who need our programs and can afford them.”

The next step in the meeting was to break into seven groups, each chaired by one of the original founders, to discuss and recommend what the highest priorities of the new association should be. When the results were collated, among the highest priorities were an annual conference, workshops, and setting industry-wide standards.

The vote of the day was to elect three new board members to join the seven original founders. Reddan explained the original founders had terms of three years on the board, that the three to be elected at Albuquerque were for two-year terms, which would make a board with ten members for the time being. Others would be elected at future conferences, anticipating eventually a board with between 10 and 15 members with staggered terms.

A brief floor discussion developed with several questions asked. One question was how this new association might relate to other organizations already developing in this new industry such as the National Association of Wilderness Camps (NATWC), and the Outdoor Behavioral HealthCare Industry Council (OBHIC). Reddan responded to the effect that this new association (NATSAP) anticipates covering a wider variety of approaches.

After the floor discussion the ballots were distributed for election of the three new board members, which included brief biographies on all nominees. There were 15 nominees, nine presented by the nominating committee, and six who had contacted Reddan before the meeting and offered to serve on the Board. The three elected for the two-year terms were Gary Emmons of Brush Ranch School in New Mexico, Kimball DeLaMare of Island View RTC in Utah, and John Mercer of Mission Mountain School in Montana.

After announcing the results of the election, John Reddan closed the meeting with thanks to all the participants for their help in the organizational meeting. He promised to be sending out the minutes and a newsletter within two weeks, applications for membership, and timely reports from Board Committees being set up to develop a draft Mission Statement, suggested basic standards for schools and programs, and plans for the next conference.

BOARD MEMBERS:
Michael Allgood, Cascade School, California, 3-year term
Tim Brace, Aspen Youth Services, California, 3-year term
Len Buccellato, Hidden Lake Academy, Georgia, 3-year term
Bobbi Christensen, Crater Lake School, Oregon, 3-year term
Kimbal DeLaMare, Island View, Utah, 2-year term
Gary Emmons, Brush Ranch School, New Mexico, 2-year term
John Mercer, Mission Mountain School, 2-year term
Jan Moss, Spring Ridge Academy, Arizona, 3- year term
John Santa, Montana Academy, Montana, 3-year term
Rosemary Tippett, Three Springs, Alabama, 3-year term.

(An article by Catherine Buie-Jennings, Ex. Dir. of Stone Mountain School in North Carolina, titled NATSAP QUESTIONS can be found in the news section of Woodbury Reports Online, http://www.strugglingteens.com.)

Copyright © 1999, Woodbury Reports, Inc.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
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Offline FemanonFatal2.0

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Re: Montana Academy
« Reply #13 on: December 21, 2008, 08:42:48 PM »
hmm.... Dennis looks oddly familiar...


« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
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CAN I HAVE YOUR FLAT SCREEN?[/size]

Offline Ursus

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'An Unchanged Mind'
« Reply #14 on: February 26, 2009, 10:50:06 AM »
Here is Larry Stednitz' review of John McKinnon's book, mentioned earlier in this thread.

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Books of Interest
Posted: Feb 18, 2009


AN UNCHANGED MIND
The Problem of Immaturity in Adolescence

By John A. McKinnon, M.C.
Lantern Books-New York
ISBN-10: 1590561244
ISBN-13: 978-1590561249

Book reviewed by Larry Stednitz, PhD

If you are a parent of a troubled teen, you will find this book invaluable. If you are an educational consultant, this book provides an excellent understanding of today's youth and the causes and treatment of behavioral and emotional problems. If you are involved with an RTC, therapeutic boarding school or a wilderness program, this book introduces cohesive and comprehensive approaches to understanding the vast majority of the youth who enter these programs and presents viable remedies.

The book weaves McKinnon's journey as a psychiatrist through the failures inherent in the disjointed systems of managed care. He discusses the management and failures of psychotropic medications which treat the symptoms, but not the causes, of behavioral and emotional problems exhibited in so many youth today. His story discusses the beginning of Montana Academy and its ten years of working with adolescents in a near perfect environment. This story is not about Montana Academy, and McKinnon's point of view could apply to any program across the country as well as serve as a parenting guide to many families.

The book proposes that a developmental point of view is necessary for psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists and teachers to fully make sense out of the many troubles of adolescents. He suggests that the global breakdown of an adolescent is best explained not as an acute mental disorder that calls for a pill, but as a disrupted maturation that calls for sustained parental intervention of a very different kind.

The book covers normal adolescent development and discusses the devastation caused by an adolescent failing to mature through each developmental stage which leads to breakdowns in the maturation process. The book covers the cause of these maturation lags that are referred to as obstacles to normal healthy development. These obstacles can be intrinsic or extrinsic obstacles, clearly explained in the book.

Ultimately, a remedy includes removing obstacles and the application of day to day recognition, daily limit setting and boundaries which must be sustained over time. The program cannot take over the complete role of limit setting. The parents have to agree to become full participants in the process. The book details the practices at Montana Academy.

Dr. John McKinnon's book took me back years ago when I was a young, eager and energetic man who was excited to find answers from that day's great clinical thinkers and writers. I loved reading Karl Menninger, the founding father of psychiatry, Don Rinsley, a brilliant graduate of the Karl Menninger School of Psychiatry, and Sherman Feinstein, known as the founding father of adolescent psychiatry. All inspired those of us in the work of treating troubled adolescents, many of whom were treated previously in long term hospitalization and residential treatment.

I found this book to ignite my enthusiasm in treating adolescents. Most people who work with adolescents continually seek answers to the complexities programs face when working with young people. I started reading his book, An Unchanged Mind, and found it difficult to put down. I believe this book is the most important book written about what is referred to as the Parent Choice Schools and Programs.


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