Woodbury Reports, Inc. - Crossroads Academy

[woodbury reports]

Changes And New Additions At Crossroads Academy

Contact:
Sam Dahlin, Ph.D., LMFT
Owner and Clinical Director
801-369-0238
http://www.crossroadsrtc.com

January 2, 2012

We hope the holidays have been good for you and hope that you have a wonderful new year.

Crossroads Academy has now been around for over 4 years-it's crazy how fast time goes! Recently, we have made a few changes. We have purchased a new home that will house 12 students. Our original house (that held 15 students) will now house 8, and we still have the other home with 8 beds as well. So, now we have 3 homes with a total of 28 beds, and our transition home that can accommodate up to 4 young adults. And as a reminder, we are able to take students that are 18.

With the addition of the new house, we have hired Jason Dalton as a primary therapist. We are super excited to have him as a part of our team. Jason has been working with adolescents for over a decade. His most recent employment was as a wilderness therapist at Second Nature for the past six years. Prior to that, he worked at Logan River Academy. Jason is a perfect fit for our team and our model. We love how enthusiastic he is and how easily he is able to build a strong relationship with his students. Also, we are excited to have a therapist who is an awesome skier, so that all of you consultants don't think that we're just a bunch of boarders!

While we have added a total of 5 new beds to the program, we have actually decreased the amount of kids in the original home. This is because we continue to love the small number of students in a home which allows us the flexibility to truly individualize a program for a student. Here are some examples of what we have been able to do: students have played on high school tennis and lacrosse teams; students have played on club soccer, rowing, and skiing teams. We even had one student on a luge team in Park City, and we currently have a student playing on Weber State University's Ice Hockey team! So while we continue to go to the ski resort a few times a week in winter and the lake in the summer, we offer additional opportunities for student to pursue healthy recreational activities.

The last change we have made recently is to our education program. We continue to use the fully accredited private school, Northridge Learning Center, to help students get caught up in school and boost their GPA's. For the students that aren't behind, we have followed the advice of a couple of you education consultants who recommended that we use the fully accredited online school, Park City Independent. This has been working very well for some of our boys-especially the younger ones. We can also do a combination of the two programs. Our education program has allowed us to help the juniors and seniors coming in to get their schooling finished and start college early. This winter semester we will have at least 7 students attending Weber State University while still in the middle of our program.

It's been an amazing four years. We look forward to many more to come working with the boys and each of you. Thanks for your support. If you are not yet familiar with Crossroads Academy, please feel free to call Sam Dahlin. Also, we would love to have you tour our school at anytime. We will be attending NATSAP in Orlando, so if you would like to set up some time to meet, you can call or email Sam.

P.S: Fuel TV was out filming the Dew Tour a few months ago, and decided they wanted to do a segment on our school. Here is a link: http://crossroadsrtc.com/index.php?o=program_overview

Crossroads Academy is a therapeutic boarding school for young men ages 16 -18 years old who have experienced substance abuse with diagnoses of oppositional defiant disorder, mood disorders and ADHD and learning disorders. With the focus on family, integrity, work and play, students learn and experience important values in order to choose a different path that will lead to happiness and individual success.

[woodbury reports]

Three important components of our model of change include:

Relationship Based: All of our staff are trained on how to hold boundaries with the students while showing love and support. We do not believe in a punishment model to get short term compliance and quick fixes. A relationship of trust will be built over time, which will allow us to inspire change through both our positive role modeling and by our challenging the student’s maladaptive beliefs.

 Experiential Based:While some of us have very similar stories and backgrounds to your son, lasting change will not take place through our inspirational words. A true and lasting change will come through your son having positive experiences in each of the three domains of our program (therapy, academics, and recreation). These positive experiences will need to bring enough self fulfillment and genuine happiness for your son to decide to give up his old lifestyle of drugs and alcohol.
 
Emotionally Focused: We believe that negative emotions tend to come from negative experiences. Most of us do not like these negative emotions and we tend to come up with ways to block this pain. Your son has found maladaptive ways (drugs, alcohol, anger, stealing, etc) to cope with his negative experiences. Our therapy is designed to push your son to gain insight into these blocking techniques and then teaching him skills to deal with his pain in healthy ways.

Individual Therapy:

Your son will receive much more than the traditional one hour a week session with his therapist. Due to our smaller caseloads (8 students) and being a small school, we will be able to really get to know your child and establish a great relationship of trust with him. We, Derek and Sam, are both the owners/co-founders of Crossroads Academy and are also two of the therapists at the school. We believe a strong relationship with your son is key, and as such, we will spend many hours a week participating in the recreation aspect of the program with your child. We will also go on regular weekend excursions with the students, which will allow us to experience your son in many different settings. Typical weekly individual sessions will be spent outside of our offices going for walks, taking drives up the beautiful canyons, going to lunch, fishing, sitting on top of the skate ramp, and in many other locations. Students will also come to our homes for barbeques and game nights. Again, we view this strong relationship with your son as imperative to facilitating a lasting change, and these are just some of the ways that we will get to know your son and build the positive relationship of trust with him.

Family Therapy:

We believe that your son’s personal growth and recovery will be greatly enhanced through the strong family component of our school. Families will receive weekly family therapy sessions over the phone and sessions in person, whenever the parents come out for a visit. These family therapy sessions will focus on better communication, parenting skills, vulnerable conversations between parents and sons, goal setting, etc.

Outside of the family therapy call, you will communicate with your son through an additional weekend call, as well as letters and email. We expect parents to participate in family workshops a couple of times a year. Parents will have reading assignments and participate in family, couple, or group therapy at home. Al-Anon meetings can be a helpful resource that we encourage as well.

Group Therapy:

With the many years of experience you have had raising your son, we are sure you have become very aware of the powerful influence that peers can have in the life of a teenager, and in your son’s case—the powerful negative influence that his peers have had on him. Group therapy is an excellent tool for turning a peer group into a powerful positive influence in your son’s life. Our goal is to empower each child to have a voice and a place where they can all feel emotionally safe to be vulnerable with one another. In group therapy, each boy will have opportunities to share his stories and experiences with peers who can often relate to the things he has been going through and who are able to offer him acceptance and support. These daily groups will be led by Sam and Derek, as well as our substance abuse counselors.

Substance Abuse/Recovery Work:

Here at Crossroads Academy, we will not manipulate your son into telling us what we want to hear. Instead, we will give him the opportunity to experience the happiness that comes from success in the different program domains, thus lighting a fire of lasting change that will come from within. In addition to the substance abuse work being done in individual, family, and group therapy, your son will also receive three hours each week of chemical dependency (CD) work with our substance abuse counselors. We do not believe in a cookie cutter approach in dealing with the students at Crossroads. Each of the adolescents in this program is a diverse individual, and because of this, a certain approach may work better for one student, while a different approach may be needed for another. Our CD counselors will have your son work through different models depending on your son’s individual needs. We start all of our students with the Seven Challenges Model. A relapse prevention plan will be formulated before your child graduates from our program.

Every facet of the program at Crossroads Academy is geared toward helping your son replace his previous addictive and unhealthy behaviors with a healthy and productive lifestyle. As your son experiences success in all three of our program’s domains: Therapy, Academics, and Recreation, we believe that he will begin gaining direction and purpose in his life. He will be getting back in touch with some core values through the influence of the program’s four guiding principles: Family, Integrity, Work, and Play. It is our hope that at the end of your son’s stay at Crossroads, he will determine on his own that the fulfillment of having healthy relationships with family and friends, the confidence and self-esteem that comes from having integrity and a strong work ethic, and the enjoyment and self-confidence that can result from wholesome recreation, free of mind-altering substances, will all out-way the temporary pleasures he experienced with his past drug-using lifestyle.

Summary:

    Individual Therapy
    Family Therapy
    Group Therapy
    Substance Abuse Counseling
    Relationship Based
    Experiential Based

[woodbury reports]

Crossroads Academy is committed to helping each student find joy and confidence in learning. We recognize that the future success of each student strongly depends on his completion of high school, as well as creating a positive road toward employment and/or higher education. With this in mind, each student who enters our program will have an individual education plan that will address his current needs and skills. This plan will first address his current educational status, including possible areas of concern. If necessary, your son will be placed on an accelerated program to help him catch up on missed credits and put him back on the road to graduation. Our education program is fully accredited by the North West Accreditation, therefore, all credits can be transferred back to your son’s high school, or he may graduate with a high school diploma from our school. We have certified and licensed teachers who teach course work, and one-on-one tutoring is available to each student.

While your son’s current educational needs are important, his future success is also paramount to consider and prepare for. Through our academic program, your son will be able to prepare for college by participating in SAT/ACT prep courses. Our school is located just blocks from Weber State University, so taking college classes may be easily facilitated. If college is not in your son’s immediate future, vocational programs are available and may include carpentry, computers, culinary arts, cabinetry, plumbing, as well as many other types of programs.

Summary:

    Individualized Educational Plans
    North West Accreditation
    Certified and Licensed Teachers
    One-on-One Tutoring
    High School Diplomas available through our program
    ACT/SAT Preparation Classes
    College Courses
    Vocational Training
    Employment Opportunities

[woodbury reports]

At Crossroads Academy, we believe that having a balanced leisure life is essential to maintaining a high level of emotional health. When people are challenged both mentally and physically through quality leisure activities, they begin to feel more competent as a sense of self-determination is experienced and developed. As adolescents develop this personal competence through leisure, they begin to feel better about themselves. Recreational activities can not only build self-esteem, but it also allows teenagers to find a positive escape from some of the difficult challenges in life. We believe that the recreation domain of our program is just as important as the academic and therapeutic domains. We want your child learning how to have fun sober and developing more self- confidence as he improves and progresses in the different sports in which he will be participating.

While Crossroads students will enjoy many forms of leisure activities varying from passive leisure activities (movies, games, computers, etc) to active leisure (fishing, playing basketball and racquetball, hiking, backpacking, paint balling, scuba diving, etc), the three main recreational activities that we will do on a regular basis are the following sports: wakeboarding, snowboarding/skiing, and skateboarding. Historically, these sports have been looked at as less than a sport and more as an activity that the “rebellious” kids participate in. Today however, thanks in part to the X-Games and the Olympics, people are validating these sports, recognizing how difficult and technical each of these sports is. Each of these can be life long sports, which allows a person to continually improve their abilities by setting goals and working on each goal until it is realized. In fact, Sam, one of the owners, is 37 years old and still continues to learn to new tricks in these sports.

Although wakeboarding, skateboarding, and snowboarding/skiing are the main sports our Crossroads students will participate in, potential students do not have to excel at or be experienced in any of these sports. What we do want them to have is a willingness and desire to participate in them and an openness to work on improving their skills. We have excellent instructors who will be able to teach the students at whatever level they may be.

Skateboarding:On our property, we have skate ramps, rails, and fun boxes including two skate ramps for the students to skate on. Our recreation director, Micky Knapton, developed a safety harness system that allows the boys to learn new tricks without getting hurt. Also, we are currently building an indoor skate park/skate shop that are students will not only be able to skate at, but will be able to work there as well. Finally, within a 8 mile radius, there are over 4 skate parks and within a 90 mile radius, there are 15 more. Skating can be a daily part of recreation here at Crossroads.

Wakeboarding: Crossroads Academy is in a perfect location for wakeboarding. We are 15 minutes away from two different lakes: Pineview Reservoir and Willard Bay. Students will be able to go wakeboarding a couple of days a week, for a few hours a day during the summer months.

Snowboarding: Each winter, students will get season passes to Snowbasin Ski Resort or Powder Mountain, which are both about 30 minutes away from our property. We will also be able to go night boarding at Wolf Mountain, which is only 15 minutes away from Crossroads. The students have the opportunity to go snowboarding 3-5 days a week, for a few hours a day on weekdays and all day on weekends through the winter and spring months of the year.

In addition to the boarding sports, each student will have a workout plan for getting in great physical shape. Students will go to the gym a few times a week and will work with a trainer to plan out their workout regimen.

Summary:

    Daily Recreation
    Sports Instructors
    Wakeboarding
    Skateboarding
    Snowboarding/skiing
    Regular Gym Attendance

[woodbury reports]

Dear Parents,

As the founders of Crossroads Academy, we write this letter to you with the intention of reducing some of the anxiety that you may be experiencing at this time in your lives. As you are reading this, your son is probably roughing it out there in the wilderness somewhere. You have made it through what was most likely a very difficult decision in sending your son to a wilderness program. Although there have probably been some rough weeks during this experience, hopefully you have been feeling some peace, knowing your son has been in a safe place and is on a positive road to healing and recovery. But now you are needing to make another very difficult decision—that of which school you should send him to this next year. Fortunately, you have a hired an educational consultant who is an expert in helping you find an appropriate placement for your son. Each of the schools that your consultant is recommending will more than likely work for your child—otherwise your consultant would not be recommending them. It is the consultant’s goal to find the most appropriate school that will do the best job of meeting your son’s needs. This is our goal here at Crossroads as well—to make sure you and your son will be a good fit for us. We will not accept a student into our program unless we believe that we can offer what you and your child need at this time.

To give you an idea of the types of students you will find at Crossroads Academy, they will all have experienced some level of substance abuse prior to being sent to the wilderness. Also prior to their wilderness experience, most of our students will have been doing little or no schoolwork, will have been lying to just about anyone, and will have been oppositional towards most authority figures. Typical diagnoses that the students coming to Crossroads will have been given include: some type of substance abuse disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, mood disorders, ADHD, and/or learning disorders. While your son may have struggled at home with some of these serious issues, if he has experienced some motivation while in the wilderness and gained some insight into his issues, then he may be a good candidate for our school.

At Crossroads, students will be going into the community on a regular basis from the day they arrive at our program (visiting ski resorts, recreation centers, lakes, skate parks, gyms, movie theaters, stores, etc.) Due to the openness of our school, we need to be careful about who we accept. In order for a prospective student to be admitted into Crossroads Academy, there needs to be some level of acceptance on the part of the student that he is going to a therapeutic boarding school for the next year of his life. (He may not necessarily have a desire to go, but at least an understanding that this is what you have determined will be best for his future.) Prospective students are those who are engaging in the therapy of the wilderness program and are showing some motivation in the wilderness (basically showing a desire to make the best out of their situation.) Also, because we have a very active recreational program involving daily activities such as snowboarding, wakeboarding, skateboarding, etc, prospective students need to have some desire to participate in these activities and be open to working on improving their skills in these different sports. Having fun sober and developing self-efficacy in these sports will be an integral part of your son’s recovery at Crossroads. Your son does not need to excel at any of these sports, but just be ready to get outside and have some good, wholesome fun. Finally, parent’s of prospective students need to be committed to fully participating in our program (by being involved in family therapy, parent weekends, support groups and/or home therapy when recommended by the therapist, doing the recommended readings, etc).

We believe that your son is at a very important crossroads in his life. Choosing a different path from the self-destructive one that he was on is a difficult choice and a very complex process. It means giving up a part of who he was and the immediate gratification that he gained from his substance abusing lifestyle. We hope to help your son see and experience some different roads ahead of him that can lead to genuine lasting happiness, instead of the temporary pleasure that he has been experiencing through his substance abuse.

At Crossroads Academy, we believe that the greatest agent of change comes through relationships. Your son will develop a relationship of trust and care with each of the three of us, as well as the rest of the members of our staff. The small size of our school (16 students) and the fact that we will be participating in the recreation program with your son, are two of the factors that will be key in allowing us to develop a close, trusting relationship with him and allowing us to get to know each and every student at our school. We will become a “second family” to you and your son. As a team (you, the three of us, and our staff), we will facilitate your son’s growth as he experiences the values of family, integrity, work, and play. We believe in each child’s innate goodness and potential, and we are committed to helping each young man choose the road that will allow him to reach this potential.

We hope this letter and our web page helps you gain a better understanding of who we are. If you have any further questions, please contact us. Also, if your circumstances allow for it, we would suggest visiting each of the programs that have been recommended to you. We all may sound pretty good on paper, but as the parent who knows your son best, this will help you get a better feel for which school will be the most appropriate for your child. Good luck, and we wish you the best in the challenging, but rewarding road ahead of you.

Sincerely,

Sam Dahlin
Derek Bowles
Eric Dahlin

[woodbury reports]

Contact:

http://crossroadsrtc.com/index.php?o=contact

Sam Dahlin
email: [email protected]
phone: 801-791-2316
fax: 801-760-4638

Crossroads Academy
914 32nd St
Ogden, Utah 84403

[Xelebes]

Any relation to the ponzi schemes being posted in the OFFA?

[cmack]

http://www.heal-online.org/childtortureusa.htm#cherokee

Cherokee Creek Boys School--Located in Westminster, South Carolina.  HEAL has received a report of fraud and abuse from two former staff at this program.  We are working on verification.  The preliminary report from the staff states: "...We had actually both suspected for awhile that the entire school was based on lies, primarily due to the fact that everything that happens there is kept as quiet as possible.  The students have almost no privacy in anything they say or do.  Their outgoing and incoming mail is read and regulated (Civil Rights/Constitutional Violation--Illegal Practices) so that they can’t say anything damning about Cherokee Creek.  Their phone calls are always scheduled and monitored by the primary counselor or therapist for the same reason.  Also, Cherokee Creek will hire anyone to watch the students during the day as long as they have at least an Associate’s degree (it doesn’t particularly matter what the degree is in), and these people are called “counselors” to the parents.  On third shift, the students’ needs are taken care of by individuals that only have to have high school diplomas.  There is never a doctor on campus, but a LPN from 7:30 to 3:00 on the weekdays.   On the weekends, there are no medical personnel at all, and pretty much anyone is allowed to disperse medications (which almost all of the students are on).  There are many other questionable practices at Cherokee Creek that I’m aware of, especially pertaining to the psychological well-being of the students.   I actually thought when I was hired that my job was to ensure the students were  taken care of both psychologically and physically, but the closer I got to the students and the more they liked me and talked to me, the more it seemed the “powers that be” wanted me gone.  I’ll put it this way, when I stopped following what the people over me said and began questioning now some of my co-workers were dealing with the students…well, I didn’t last long after that..."

[woodbury reports]

Meet Our Staff

Samuel K. Dahlin, MS, Ph.D., LMFT
Co-Owner/Founder, Clinical Director, Primary Therapist


[email protected]

Crossroads Academy - Sam Dahlin FamilySam received his B.S in Psychology at the University of Utah. He then attended Brigham Young University, where he completed his M.S and Ph.D in Marriage and Family Therapy. While in school, Sam’s clinical experience included working with couples, families, and individuals. His research and clinical focus turned toward adolescents and substance abuse. Sam has presented research at national marriage and family therapy conferences and has been published in the Journal of Marriage and Family Therapy.

Over the past 10 years, Sam has been working with adolescents and their families in various settings. Sam has spent over six years working as a wilderness therapist. He worked at Aspen Achievement Academy in Loa, Utah for a year where he first learned how powerful the wilderness can be as an agent of change in the life of an adolescent. Sam then worked as the adolescent program director at the Gathering Place, an outpatient substance abuse clinic. After missing the wilderness, he returned a year later, this time to the Second Nature Wilderness Program in Duchesne, Utah, where he was a primary therapist for five years. At the end of those five years, Sam and the Second Nature founders partnered up with an existing school called Willow Creek. As a partner, director, and therapist, Sam spent this last year helping develop the Willow Creek School into a solid clinical boarding school.

Currently, Sam is the co-founder of Crossroads Academy. He is the clinical director and a primary therapist. He is also one of the wakeboard instructors in the recreation program at Crossroads.
Crossroads Academy - Sam Dahlin

Sam spent the first twenty two years of his life growing up in the Bay Area (Campbell, CA). He has been living in Utah for the past twelve years. Sam has also been married for that same amount of time (He followed his wife to Utah). Sam married a wonderful girl named Melanie, and together they have three beautiful daughters, Haylee (, Kambrie (6), and Gwen (3). Sam’s family enjoys many outdoor activities together, with snowboarding and wakeboarding as two of their favorites. Sam has been snowboarding since 1989 and wakeboarding since 1997. He also really enjoys skateboarding on half pipes and needs a lot of work on his street skating skills.

"Starting up Crossroads Academy has been a dream of mine ever since I was working at Aspen Achievement Academy seven years ago. After finishing my PhD and gaining experience in both wilderness and residential therapy, I am finally in a place to realize this dream.

About half way through my graduate school experience, it became clear to me that working with adolescents was the right fit for me. Adolescence is such a difficult developmental phase to navigate through and many teens struggle to find their way. Like your son, I too, struggled during adolescence, as well as in my young adult years. I stopped following the values that my parents had tried to instill in me, and began lying and abusing substances to the point that I had lost all direction in life. At age 21, I had a rock bottom experience that changed my life. After that experience, I searched for meaning in my life, and what I found was nothing particularly deep or profound, but rather something very basic. The truth I learned for me was that life is about finding lasting joy, and this joy is found by living true to my values.

Crossroads Academy - Sam DahlinWhile I realize that each individual has his or her own set of values, I believe that there are some basic principles in life, which if followed, will bring genuine happiness to most people. I believe that the four guiding principles of our program (family, integrity, work, and play) will give your son back the foundation that he needs to find success and happiness. My motto is: “Work hard and play hard.” That is why I am running a small school, so that I will be able to know all 16 students and have the opportunity to not only be a part of their treatment team, but to be playing with them each day. I believe this will foster meaningful, lasting relationships that will help these young men at this important crossroads in their lives."

[woodbury reports]

Meet Our Staff

Derek Bowles, MS, LCSW
Co-Owner/Founder, Program Director, Primary Therapist


[email protected] Academy - Derek Bowles

Derek Bowles is a co-founder of Crossroads Academy and primary therapist. Derek received a Bachelors degree from Weber State University where he double majored in Social Work and Sociology. He received a Masters Degree in Clinical Social Work from Brigham Young University in 2001. Derek was awarded the Social Worker of Promise Award by his graduating class.

Since graduating, Derek has worked with adolescents in both outpatient and residential treatment centers. He worked as a primary therapist for YHA, a private treatment center for adolescent males until he co-founded Pathway Academy in Ogden, Utah. Derek has served as clinical director for the past two years. He sold Pathway Academy after his partner and co-founder became ill. Derek has maintained a private practice in Farmington, Utah, where he specializes in adolescents and couples therapy.

Derek has presented at the Utah State Mental Health Conference on suicide, and the National Victims Awareness Conference. Derek is an accomplished presenter and trainer and has served as a Critical Incident Debrief Therapist with the Davis County sheriff’s and District Attorney’s office.
Crossroads Academy - Derek Bowles

Derek’s greatest joy lies in his relationship to his wife of 12 years, Cariane, and his two daughters, Madison (9) and Myken (3). Derek and Cariane built their home in Liberty, Utah located in beautiful Ogden Valley, just minutes away from two major ski resorts and two mountain lakes. Derek is an avid fly fisherman and has fished throughout the United States. He is a mediocre golfer, but is working at improving his game. Derek enjoys all aspects of the outdoors and looks forward to working with the students at Crossroads Academy in hopes of holding on to his adolescence a bit longer.

"It is interesting how life seems to draw us toward our strengths and passions. When the opportunity came for Sam, and I to start Crossroads Academy, I jumped at the chance to combine the joys of adolescent treatment with the outdoors and boarding sports. It is my belief that adolescents who find enjoyment and confidence in sports, education, and interpersonal relationships are better able to manage the difficult roads that so many young people face today.

The values that Crossroads Academy are built upon have served me well in my life: Integrity in all that we do, strong family bonds that include friends and community, work that is the basis for self-confidence and success, and finally, play, that brings meaning and memories to our lives. These values have provided me with a strong foundation in my life and will hopefully provide that same foundation to your son, as he continues down the road of recovery and success."

[woodbury reports]

Meet Our Staff

Eric Dahlin
Co-Owner/Founder, Business Administrator

Eric has worked in the high-tech industry for 20+ years, with the last 15 years in Engineering Management with Seagate Technology, a Fortune 500 company, where he earned US Patents and Technical achievement awards.
Crossroads Academy

"Although working in the high-tech field has been challenging and rewarding, the decision to leave and start Crossroads Academy was not a difficult one. I have enjoyed working with the youth in my community in both Boy Scouts and church organizations for the past decade. This opportunity to work fulltime with struggling adolescents, helping them make positive changes in their lives, will bring much more personal joy and satisfaction than anything I could have ever experienced in my previous career."

Eric enjoys many outdoor activities, including wakeboarding, skiing, mountain biking, and scuba diving. He is a competitive racquetball player, sponsored by Head, and passionately believes in the physical and emotional health benefits of proper nutrition and exercise. Along with business operation responsibilities, Eric will be working closely with fitness and nutrition experts to ensure each student receives proper exercise and a healthy diet that promotes recovery and improves overall health and performance.

Eric and his wife Dianne have been married 24 years. They have 3 wonderful children, Matthew (22), Jeffrey (20), and Annie (17).

[woodbury reports]

Meet Our Staff

Ian D. Feinauer, Ph. D., LMFT

Ian has a Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy from Brigham Young University. His research emphasis was on implicit process rules and their affects on adolescent symptomology such as depression and anxiety. Ian also received his B.A. in Psychology with an emphasis in recreational therapy from the University of Utah and a M.S. in Marriage and Family Therapy from the University of Kentucky.

Ian's clinical experience at the University of Kentucky included working with couples, depression, lower SES families, and juvenile sex offenders and their victims. After completing his masters degree Ian worked at Turn-About Ranch in Escalante, Utah. While at Turn-About, Ian gained an appreciation for the experiential therapeutic potentials of working with adolescents in a residential treatment/ranch setting. He became more interested in working with adolescents and their families. While at Brigham Young University, Ian specialized in working with adolescents and their families, premarital couples, addiction, juvenile sex offenders and trauma survivors. Ian also pursued more training in psychodynamic and developmental theory. This has helped shape his approach to individual issues and compliments his systemic background that is entrenched in family therapy theory. After Ian attended BYU, he sought out a job with and worked for Second Nature Wilderness Program in Duchesne Utah. While at Second Nature Ian was able to truly develop and come into his own as a therapist. He had the opportunity to work with both adolescent boys and girls. While at Second Nature Ian developed a passion for the conceptualization of adolescent issues and an appreciation for the hurdles that youth are faced with in today's society.
Ian

Since Leaving Second Nature in April of 2007 Ian has worked for various programs as well as doing some private practice. Ian was able to run one Residential program for adolescents as well as consulting for and developing two other programs. Ian is excited to be working at Crossroads and has dedicated himself to continued education and skill development both clinically and personally.

In addition, Ian has conducted and facilitated discussions as well as has presented research and theory related to family differentiation and eating disorders, family leisure patterns, family of origin and adult alcohol use, juvenile sex offenders, and the effects of marital quality on individual health at national and regional conferences. Ian has also published papers relating to family literacy, family rules, and family and child well being, and has submitted several publications related to family process rules, the effects of sex abuse on male victims as well as the epistemologies of learning and knowing.

In addition to Ian's clinical background he also has a degree in Fire Science as he once pursued a career as a fire fighter. He also spent ten years as a river guide in the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Besides having a substantial effect on his own life, as a river guide Ian noticed the effects that wilderness and experiential learning has on individuals as well as family systems. This had an effect on him as he pursued his career as a therapist and has shaped his thoughts and feelings regarding change and each persons potential.

Ian still loves to run rivers, snowboard, wakeboard, ride his mountain bike, rock climb, and eat ice cream. Ian is the oldest of five children and an avid Portland Trailblazers fan. He is fluent in French and loves to travel when he can

[woodbury reports]

Meet Our Staff

Jason Dalton, MS, LCSW
Crossroads Academy - Jason Dalton

Jason earned a B.S. in Family Science in 1997 and then went on to complete his Masters of Social Work in 1999, both from Brigham Young University.

Jason's clinical experience while at Brigham Young University included working at the VA medical Center both on the inpatient psychiatric unit as well as with the homeless population. He also spent time in an adult substance abuse program. Jason then worked with the Family Support and Treatment Center providing therapy for children, adolescents, couples, and families. Here he was trained in play therapy and sandplay therapy, the latter he has incorporated into his ongoing work with adolescents as an adjunct to individual and family therapy. Since completing his Master's degree Jason has worked with adolescents in the residential and wilderness treatment settings. For the last six years Jason has been working for the Second Nature Wilderness Programs in Duchesne, Utah. Jason was initially drawn to wilderness therapy by a desire to help students better transition from their wilderness experience into their residential setting and is now better prepared than ever to help students with this transition and to continue to build on the work that many of them have started in the wilderness.

Prior to Jason's clinical experience he worked with adolescents in a variety of community and treatment program settings since 1993. Jason has a great love and appreciation for adolescents and the struggles that are unique to this stage in life. For nearly 20 years now he has been working with adolescents in the community through work and other adolescent focused groups. This has been a natural fit and his own life has been greatly influenced by the many wonderful young people that he has been able to interact with. In his clinical work he enjoys drawing on his training and education, as well as his personal experiences while he works to understand each student and their individual struggles and strengths.
Crossroads Academy - Jason Dalton

The outdoors and recreation have always been a powerful part of Jason's life and he has spent a lot of his time in pursuit of these activities. "When I was about 10 or 11 I put on my first pair of skis. These were the red plastic one's that you strapped onto your snow boots. It wasn't much, but it was a start and I remember the magical sensation of sliding down a hill on skis. It has been a passion that I have pursued since that day. Skiing has provided a great opportunity to connect with family and friends, to challenge myself physically and emotionally, and to develop a sense of mastery while having a great deal of fun." Being on a bike has also been a natural part of Jason's life. He has been riding a bike in some form or another for most of his life. Whether skiing, biking, or hiking, and usually taking a lot of pictures along the way, Jason has found a place for connecting, serenity, curiosity and exploring, as well as challenging himself in the great outdoors. He is looking forward to incorporating this in his continued work with adolescents at Crossroads Academy.

Jason loves spending time with his wife Melanie of nearly 17 years and four daughters. He has learned a lot of patience teaching each of his four daughters to ski. They spend as much time as possible in the winter up on the slopes as a family. He enjoys supporting his wife and daughters in their own pursuits around dance and the arts as well. As a family much of their time is spent outdoors exploring, working, sharing and connecting.

[woodbury reports]

Micky Knapton
Recreation Director, Sports Instructor



For the past 10+ years Micky has been working as a Mechanical Designer in the California Bay Area. While this career has been very demanding, Micky has always found time for his passion – boarding. Skateboarding, surfing, snowboarding, and wakeboarding, have all been a big part of his life for the past 20+ years.

In addition to mechanical design, Micky has professionally taught skateboarding to a wide range of students. His students have ranged from first timers to students who are in competitions. More than one of his students has gone on to become sponsored skateboarders.

Combining his skills as a mechanical designer and his love for teaching various types of boarding, Micky has developed a skateboard cable system. This harness system allows a person to learn to skate at various levels, including the mastering of advanced tricks, while maintaining a superior level of safety. This system will be implemented at Crossroads Academy’s skate park to help keep your son as safe as possible. Micky is also the designer and co-owner of the Force Skateboard Tool company. This company’s team riders include professional skateboarders like: Steve Caballero, Jason Adams, Caswell Berry, and soon to be added Louie Barletta.

Micky has been married to his wife Malena since July 2000. They are the proud parents of one boy and two girls (twins!). Being young parents keeps them on their toes, but brings them infinite joy.

"Over the years, boarding sports have been my escape. These are sports that constantly challenge me and have provided me with a healthy escape from the pressures and trials of life. I have used these sports to help overcome my own personal struggle with substance abuse in my adolescent and young adult years. I believe that it is imperative for anyone who is trying to conquer hardships and/or addictions in his/her life, to have some healthy form of escape-an activity that is good for the body and soul. For me this escape has always been boarding. These different boarding sports have helped me replace the bad with the good, and provided a way to keep the world from conquering me.
Crossroads Academy - Micky Knapton

I have been fortunate enough to see this type of escape also work in the lives of many of my students. I still get Christmas cards/letters from grateful parents and students of years past. I love this work. It has been very rewarding to see the positive influence I have been able to have on the lives of these adolescents. Now as a parent, I understand more fully the importance of good role models, good friends, and healthy escapes in the lives of our children."

[Xelebes]

Totally dig the attempted flooding of the forums.