Wilderness Therapy Program for Troubled Boys
Shepherd’s Hill Academy offers a unique and effective approach to healing for troubled youth. The science of psychology and experience have demonstrated the therapeutic value of nature and the great outdoors. Spending significant time in an unplugged environment works wonders on a teenager’s critical, constructive, and creative thinking skills. These skills are too often lost in today’s toxic culture and digitally-addicted age. Getting away from these influences in a positive, calming natural environment helps promote healing.
Boys Wilderness Program
We offer boys a wilderness therapy program to help them heal and recover from any of the addictive and behavioral issues that can affect youth today. The residential component of SHA is a therapeutic environment that offers a simple living experience free of the overstimulation and distractions that affect their daily lives.
We create a positive place where teens can grow, learn, and thrive. In this environment, teens are challenged to learn skills such as emotional regulation and adaptive coping mechanisms. They also learn leadership, responsibility, accountability, and work ethic. Free of digital distractions, our program participants learn healthy face-to-face relationships and holistic therapeutic interactions that cultivate health and well-being.
In this calm and positive environment, good behavior becomes their idea because it’s rooted in the experiences that life in the woods promotes. An important part of the experience is hearing the still small voice of God and the tenants of a biblical worldview.
Unplugging: Wilderness Therapy for Boys
In our boy wilderness program, students learn wise and healthy habits. They learn positive etiquette during their stay that they can take with them when they return home. They also learn sustainable development skills they can use throughout their entire lives. In addition to benefiting their emotional well-being, there are psychological and spiritual benefits to this therapeutic approach. In the course of their stay with us, 70% of students who come to SHA on medications graduate SHA free of medications or with significantly reduced regimens. We ground our approach in scientific research, and everything at SHA is biblically based and scientifically supported.
Our wilderness therapy programs are designed to take students out of their comfort zones. However, it doesn’t take them long to adapt and actually enjoy the experience. Through this effective approach, their appetites become re-oriented to more wholesome activities and interactions. Many students have even called their year at SHA, the best year of their lives!
Though loving Jesus Christ is in no way a prerequisite to their success through the program, they will likely never find a better and more freeing atmosphere for knowing God and His Word.
Our Boys Wilderness Therapeutic Program Builds a Positive Environment
When teenage boys stay with us as part of our wilderness therapy for boys, they reside in structurally sound rustic cabins. They even get to help build and maintain the cabins. The facility is located about a quarter-mile from the Shepherd’s Hill Academy main campus.
The wilderness-like communities emphasize simple living and the benefits of living closer to nature. The communities have no running water or electricity. All cabins are heated with wood-burning stoves.
Shepherd’s Hill Academy’s main campus provides fully functional amenities such as showers, restrooms, laundry machines, a cafeteria, and classrooms. Each day, teens attend their academic classes on campus, eat three healthy meals, and properly maintain personal hygiene. While we focus on rustic living to help clear their minds, our students have access to all the amenities they will need.
Shepherd’s Hill Academy is a licensed Outdoor Child Care Program that meets all guidelines and regulations set forth by the state of Georgia. All teens are supervised 24/7 with a 5:1 student-to-staff ratio by the Boys Residential Team. We work with each student to progress through the programs and to build positive habits.
Activities
While at Shepherd’s Hill Academy, our Boys Wilderness Therapeutic Program provides your troubled teen boy with the opportunity to regularly engage in wholesome, healthy, exciting, and relaxing activities.
On-Campus Activities
Our approximately 200-acre facility provides a wealth of opportunity for your teen. Students get to experience virtually unlimited creative activities.
- Access to exercise and fitness, including free weights
- Basketball, soccer, flag football, volleyball, GaGa ball, disc-golf, and other recreational activities
- Walking trails and nature paths
- In-ground swimming pool with an activity pavilion
- Creative activities
- Opportunities for maintenance, demolition, and construction activities
- Pond and dock area for fishing
Off-Campus Activities
Each month, our students are given an off-campus activity to help them make the most of their stay. This means they will participate in any number of activities in the surrounding communities, which can include, but are not limited to:
- Camping and fishing
- Movie and dinner
- Amateur and professional sporting events
- Local festivals
- Museum, planetarium, and aquarium visits
- Hiking near parks, lakes, streams, and waterfalls
Contact Us
If you feel your teen could benefit from the positive effects of living closer to nature and learning healthy habits, contact Shepherd’s Hill Academy today.
