teen transitional living program after wilderness - teen aftercare program

Does My Teen Need a Teen Transitional Living Program After Wilderness Therapy?

After your teen finishes wilderness therapy, you will have to figure out what comes next. As a parent, your first instinct may be to bring them home as soon as possible. Unfortunately, despite your best intentions, that is usually the wrong course of action and can even be detrimental to their recovery.
Wilderness therapy takes teenagers away from the temptations and distractions that initiate substance use, with natural therapy. However, as they return to their everyday lives, they will be exposed again. The victorious feeling they achieved during their treatment period may be replaced by frustration and disappointment if they cannot maintain good behavior. In the long run, it can cause them to relapse.

Fortunately, most wilderness therapy programs offer professional advice regarding positive post-treatment environments. Their recommendation often emphasizes the importance of a teen transitional living program.

What Is Teen Transitional Living?

A teen transitional living program is a teen aftercare or residential programs for teens sober living that helps them cope with the challenges they encounter after wilderness therapy. It provides them with continued support so they can further develop healthy life skills. They also receive professional guidance that ensures their recovery and abstinence continues.

During the teen transitional living program, teenagers are under intense supervision while living in the Los Angeles home. Typically, participants need to stay in the teen transitional program for about 3–6 months. However, the duration may be shorter or longer depending on their needs.
The program provides crucial academic support to help teens get back on track with their education. It also features individual therapy sessions that are less intensive and focused on setting goals and overcoming barriers they may encounter.

How a Teen Transitional Living Program Can Help

As teenagers return to their everyday lives after wilderness therapy, they encounter new challenges that prevent them from getting back on track. An aftercare for teens can help them address these issues while enjoying their newfound freedom. Next, we will explore the types of challenges that a teen transitional living program can help with.

Home-Life Changes

After wilderness therapy, the first challenge teenagers encounter is changes within the home, specifically the developments in their familial relationships. Luckily, the teen transitional living program can help your child cope up with these changes.
For example, it addresses issues like broken trust from past experiences. Participants gain insights as to how they can rebuild trust with their family members. Most importantly, it will help them cultivate healthier and more honest relationships going forward.

Fear of Getting Back

Although your teen may have confidence in their refined skills, applying them to an open environment can be challenging. Teens often fear returning home and finding themselves unable to continue their healthy progress. Additionally, they may worry about encountering the trigger that brought them to wilderness therapy in the first place.
Transitional living programs help teens feel more secure by showing them how to cope with their anxieties and fear. Accordingly, the program includes individual therapy sessions that allow them to focus directly on their apprehensions.

Smoother Transition

There are vast differences between how your child sees the world before, during, and after wilderness therapy. Hence, returning to life after wilderness therapy can be overwhelming. Often, teens expect a lot more from themselves than anyone else. If they do not know how to deal with the additional pressure, they may be tempted to go back to old habits that threaten their sobriety.
One of the primary goals of a teen transitional living program is to help them have a smoother transition. It teaches them how to apply what they learned during wilderness therapy to the real world. They will also be given the freedom to use their newfound skills in a less strict setting.

Benefits of Transitional Living

The main goal of transitional living is to give your child a smoother post-therapy transition by reinforcing the skills they learned and showing them how to use them. However, attending a teen transitional living program also provides additional, long-term benefits.

Continued Guidance and Support

In a post-treatment program, your teenager will be surrounded by people who truly support their recovery. During or after the teen transitional living program, they can connect with a teen mentor who will support and inspire them. Mentors also provide guidance for coping with the challenges they may encounter during the transition period. In addition, your child will meet other teens who are experiencing the same dilemma, helping them feel less alone or isolated.

Make New Friends

One of the best things your child can experience in a teen transitional living program is meeting other teens and bonding with them. Recovering teenagers need to have friends and peers who understand their situation. A supportive environment will help your teen be more motivated to make changes and become the best version of themselves. Additionally, forming a bond is the first step in developing supportive and understanding relationships that are vital to personal success.

Structured Transitions

Perhaps, the most important benefit they can get from the teen transitional living program is a structured transition back to their everyday life. After all, recovery does not end after treatment. Hence, the transition period is a crucial phase of continued recovery. It serves as the bridge between wilderness therapy and mainstream life. Moreover, it provides your teenager with the opportunity to adjust to their new life in a safe and controlled environment.

Academic Support

Participants also receive academic support while attending the teen transitional living program. They meet regularly with a tutor to help them keep up with their school life. Furthermore, achieving scholastic success is an excellent way for teenagers to build organizational skills and improve their self-esteem.

Money Management

One of the essential life skills your child will surely learn from a teen transitional living program is money management. They will be provided insights for managing finances effectively. They will also learn financial discipline, which can help them overcome financial troubles they may face.

What to Expect from Teen Transitional Living

Although transitional living provides a lot of freedom, there are still restrictions to ensure safety and continued recovery. While there is no specific set of rules that every place follows, most facilities implement similar regulations.
Facility guidelines often include:
  1. Drugs and alcohol are strictly prohibited.
  2. Teens must follow the curfew.
  3. Teens must be courteous.
  4. Violence and aggression are not tolerated.
  5. Teens must actively participate in sessions and house meetings.
  6. Sexual contact with other teens is not allowed.
  7. Be respectful.

“Does My Teen Need Teen Transitional Living After Wilderness Therapy?”

If you want what is best for them, the clear answer is yes. Teen transitional living programs provide essential services and support systems crucial for helping teenagers transition to everyday living. Enrolling your child into a teen transitional living program like Key Healthcare Teen Sober Living is the best way to ensure their long-term recovery.

Why Key Healthcare?

Key Healthcare Teen Sober Living is well known and respected as one of the best teen transitional living programs in Los Angeles, California. Our Teen Sober Living program is a rigorous and structured teen transitional aftercare program for teenagers ages 14 to 17 who have completed wilderness therapy or residential treatment. Our approach allows every teen to enjoy the comfort and warmth of our home while also providing accountability. Moreover, it helps teenagers apply the skills they have learned in recovery programs to their everyday life. Therefore, our Teen Aftercare Program focuses on:

  • Critical Thinking
  • Problem Solving
  • Decision Making
  • Social Skills
  • Cultivating Good Behavior
  • Working through Stress and Emotions
  • Effective Study Habits
  • Communication Skills
  • Taking Responsibility
  • Mindfulness
  • Group Exercise
  • Individual, Group, and Family Therapy

We believe that recovery rehabilitation entails more than merely abstaining from drugs and alcohol. An adolescent Aftercare Wilderness Program is intended to cultivate positive experiences and provide a new perspective on life. Hence, our teen aftercare treatment program actively assists teens as they transition back into mainstream life.

The friendships they form with other program participants reinforce principles of community and connectivity. Together, they will discover how to embrace a happy lifestyle while maintaining sobriety. Most importantly, they will learn that they do not need to be drunk or high to experience a good time.

If you live in Los Angeles, learn more about our adolescent intensive outpatient program.

Our Teen IOP offers therapy for teen behavioral issues, teen drug treatment, teen marijuana treatment, and other types of drug-related problems.

Help Your teen With Key Healthcare teen sober living

At Key Healthcare in Los Angeles, our teen aftercare program accepts most PPO insurance plans as payment. This Teen Aftercare Program could be up to 100% covered by Insurance. Most of the adolescents living at our teen rehab aftercare program are from around the USA. We help with every step of the process.

We also provide evidence-based treatment to teens struggling with issues such as addiction, trauma, ADHD, OCD, and autism. We also are well-known rehab center known for our top-notch teen autism therapy & teen mental health services. To learn more about our Teen Transitional Living program, contact us today.

You can also schedule a visit to tour our IOP facilities at 1251 Westwood Blvd Suite 300, Los Angeles.