Because we want parents to be comfortable with their decision to place their child at Paint Rock Valley, we will be happy to provide a list of Parent and Professional references. Below you will find an example of a letter we received from a parent. For more letters, please contact our Admissions Director.
Parent:
Having just returned from my son’s graduation ceremony at Paint Rock Valley, it seems a good time to convey my admiration of and appreciation for the work you do there. You have my permission to share this letter with any audience for which it may be appropriate; a reader should know that it was unsolicited.
When my son entered Paint Rock Valley in the spring of 1995, he had become an expert at abusing drugs, alcohol and people. His self-hatred led to two suicide attempts. We tried all the conventional approaches: therapy, drug regimes, and hospitalizations. As my son attempted to destroy himself, those around him also fell apart; by the time he was placed at Three Springs, his mother and I (we were divorced in 1983) were no longer speaking.
Thirteen months later some 20 of us stood in a circle and participated in my son’s graduation from the program. In the circle were my son’s group members, his counselor and Paint Rock Valley staff members. I stood next to my ex-wife, her husband, their daughter, my son. It wasn’t only my son who had been ”saved,“ as his mother put it at the ceremony, but his extended family as well.
I believe that these changes could occur because of the unique vision behind and structure of the Paint Rock Valley program. I thoroughly enjoyed my visits there; after 30 years of working in higher education, I have never seen an institution better able to translate theory into practice and to realize its ideals. As I have said to my wife a number of times, if I had another life to live, I’d like to spend it involved in a place like Three Springs.
Paint Rock Valley has designed a simple and elegant solution to the problem of dealing with out-of-control adolescent boys. It starts with the physical. The outdoor life and rugged daily routine releases energy and demands a continual reckoning with the “real.” The military rigor complements this: the lining up and counting off, the insistence on the politeness of a “yes, sir”, the promotion through rank from buddy to SGM. Taken together, these routines show the boys that behavior has immediate and concrete consequences.
The therapeutic component at Paint Rock Valley is fully integrated into the daily routine. As a result, expressing and dealing with feelings becomes a continual reality in the boys’ lives. Opportunities for expression are structured through increasingly intense stages: the personal conference between two individuals, the group huddle that can be called anytime, the nightly group meeting. And the decorum enforced at the nightly group meeting, the announcement of topics, the expectation of feedback, the procession around the circle, the prohibition on interrupting or back talk ensures that everyone can be heard in a safe and respectful way.
The quiet expectation of family support extends the Paint Rock Valley experience back into the homes of those who send boys there. It has certainly transformed both of the households that are my son’s homes. When he entered Paint Rock Valley, the two households were estranged. I did not talk to my ex-wife, and my spouse had become so alienated by my son’s behavior that she had opted out of any contact with him.
The program's conference calls served early on as mediation with the “other” parent. The first home visit allowed my wife to discover her affinities with my son, and his with her. By the time she visited Three Springs in the spring of 1996, she and my son had rebuilt their relationship to the point where he was boasting about the acuity of her comments at nightly meetings. Certainly Paint Rock Valley makes it clear from the start that the child cannot grow unless the family heals itself; more importantly, Paint Rock Valley provides the means for this to happen.
The policy of a gradual reinsertion of the child into the world the sequence of town visit/home visit/group home/aftercare allowed my son to test the waters without drowning in them. (The Sequel TSI school was also essential in this, although, in my son's case, schooling was not our first concern. For those who are concerned, it may be worth noting that while at Paint Rock Valley he scored a 790 on his verbal SAT exam.) The first half-year at Paint Rock Valley requires an absorption into the rhythms of the place, and many programs might expect only this. The temptation to become comfortable with the program's deeply assuring routines is offset, once the child is ready, by the challenge and the promise that there is also a way back.
All of this depends on the work of a dedicated and professional staff. The counselors are in the front line of the action, living, eating and sleeping with the boys. To a visiting adult, the counselors were warm and welcoming: my participation in every phase of a weekend's activities was encouraged. The counselors had been clearly trained to hold off or to engage as the case requires, allowing for individual growth and discovery. Time and again I watched a counselor lead out a boy by knowing how to wait or what to say. The carefully articulated Three Springs philosophy deserves some credit for this, but a philosophy is only as good as the people that implement it. And here the Family Services staff does its essential work.
As our Family Services contact person, you played a crucial role. Whenever I had a question, I could call. You never played into self-serving anxiety or unfounded hope. As the year wore on, you gently nudged us all toward more open, less conflicted communication. From the start, you said that our son would “make it”. Even that early on, you had displayed a probity that made me believe you, despite my fear that you might just be saying what a parent wanted to hear. You worked out a treatment plan and you stuck to it, while translating it into an accessible and reassuring vocabulary for our family.
I will miss Paint Rock Valley; it taught me more about teaching than five years in a graduate school, more about parenting than many years of therapy. You were a big part of that experience, and I send this along as a token of my respect and gratitude.
Sincerely yours,
A PRV Parent
