Copper Canyon Academy offers a full program of Equine Therapy. This program is especially valuable to younger students, students who have a history of not responding well to traditional therapy, and to students with attachment/bonding issues. The Equine Therapy program is included in your daughter's tuition and is offered in addition to the existing individual and group therapy.
"Before and After" Study at Boarding School Indicates Treatment Produces Good Results
Read more: Study Shows Teens Improve at Copper Canyon Academy and Aspen Education Group >>
A two-year study of adolescent girls at Copper Canyon Academy found that most had a "clinically significant decrease in symptoms" after spending less than a year at the school.
Therapist, George R. Davies, LMFT, administered two personality tests to 268 students when they enrolled in the small, private therapeutic boarding school in Verde Valley, Arizona. Then the girls retook the same tests right before they went home. Davies conducted the study between December 17, 2004 and February 22, 2007.
Participants showed a statistically significant reduction in nearly every measure of the tests, which look at areas such as substance abuse proneness, family discord, oppositional behaviors, unruliness, delinquent predisposition, impulsivity, depression, suicidal tendency, and more. At intake, 33% of the girls scored in the clinical range for "unruly." At termination, that number was down to 3%. At intake, 22% of the girls were in the clinical range for oppositional behaviors; at termination, there were none. The Self-Demeaning and Borderline scales were 26% and 20% clinical range at intake; at termination, both of these were none.
Davies used the Adolescent Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory, the Million Adolescent Clinical Inventory, and the Adolescent Psychopathology Scale to test students twice. He compared the Copper Canyon Academy scores with the scores of thousands of average teenagers in order to understand how much the Academy students differed from the norms. The girls improved and moved their scores closer to the mean scores of normal teens after an average stay of 10.3 months at the Academy.
About 90% of the students, ages 14 to 18 years, had already been through some form of treatment program when they came to Copper Canyon Academy. The majority of the girls had already been diagnosed with affective disorder, substance abuse or dependency, conduct or oppositional disorder, anxiety disorder, or attention deficit/ hyperactivity. About half were on some form of medications. Some 95% of their families reported discord and relationship problems.
Copper Canyon Academy is a small private boarding school in central Arizona, about 95 miles from Phoenix. The girls study year-round in a college-preparatory curriculum, while they undergo intense therapy with Master's and doctoral level counselors. They keep journals, learn social skills, and do constant self-monitoring and assessments, as counselors work with them in groups and as individuals. Meanwhile, their parents undergo therapy and sometimes parenting classes through the Internet. Copper Canyon Academy is known for its animal therapies, including horseback riding and caring for dogs. The girls also participate in traditional sports such as basketball, hiking, soccer and softball.