• Therapeutic Services

    We recognize and embrace the fact that every student is unique, therefore each student receives an individualized treatment plan.

Everything we do focuses on building relationships with our students so they feel safe to make changes, build healthy social skills, and abandon unhealthy coping mechanisms and build new ones. We know if individuals do not feel safe in their environment and feel a sense of love and belonging they will not be able to make changes within themselves and build their sense of worth. This is why the therapeutic relationship is so important to all of us at Waterfall Canyon Academy.

Individual & Family Therapy

Each student will meet with his primary therapist for a minimum of one hour per week for individual therapy. Through the individual therapy process, students are taught skills needed to better function in a variety of environments such as emotional management, social skills, developing and maintaining healthy relationships, mindfulness and awareness, along with the objectives outlined in their treatment plan.

Family therapy, an integral part of the student’s treatment program, is provided by the primary therapist. All students will have a minimum of one family therapy session each week. Families receive help and guidance in working with their son to strengthen family relationships.

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Group Therapy

Waterfall Canyon Academy offers various opportunities for group therapy within our program continuum. Group therapy provided include:

(MRT) Moral Reconation Therapy is a cognitive Behavioral approach that helps our students develop a better understanding between the choices they make and their emotions. The MRT work book that many of our students work through is the Character Development workbook. This work book focuses on helping the individual develop will power and self-discipline. As they work through the work book they also have an opportunity to advance in the program. The MRT book is directly related to the steps in the program.

(DBT) Dialectical Behavioral Therapy has been helping our student population learn better emotional control and awareness. DBT focuses on learning four types of skills. The first, mindfulness skills helps our students know themselves better and have more control over their emotions and how to act in situations. The second set of skills, emotion regulation, will help them learn important information about their emotions and help them manage them better and have more positive emotions. Distress tolerance will help them get through crisis situations without making things worse by falling back on behaviors they may have used in the past. Finally, interpersonal effectiveness will help them develop healthier relationships with other people.

This group is one of the more open groups at WCA as there is no workbook, homework or outline. Every week one of our licensed therapists runs the “processing group.” These groups give your son/daughter the opportunity to bring up topics they desire to work through. Often these groups focus on conflict resolution, peer interactions, house issues, community interactions etc. At times, the clinician will bring a topic relating to current matters such as, home visits, Family Seminars, community stressors/interactions and behavioral issues in programs etc. We find that a lot of good work comes out of these less formal groups.

“The Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS) is a social skills intervention for motivated teens with Autism Spectrum Disorders in middle and high school who are interested in learning ways to help them make and keep friends. The PEERS intervention has demonstrated significant positive outcomes in clinical trials and follow-up. During each group session, teens are taught important social skills and are given the opportunity to practice these skills in session during socialization activities.”

C.A.T. Project is a cognitive-behavioral approach designed to treat adolescents ages 14–17 who are diagnosed with an anxiety disorder (e.g., generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, separation anxiety disorder). Treatment is divided into two parts. During the first sessions, the therapist teaches the adolescent how to recognize anxious feelings and thoughts, use strategies to manage their anxiety, and reward themselves for facing the anxiety.

During the last several sessions, the adolescent completes tasks designed to expose them to anxiety provoking situations based on their specific anxieties. Exposure starts with tasks that are less anxiety provoking and increases gradually to tasks that are more and more anxiety provoking. C.A.T. Project adapts the content of Coping Cat – Individual to address the sources of anxiety and social phobias adolescents may face, with corresponding differences in the exposure tasks. In between sessions, the adolescent completes exercises to aid in skill development. The therapist meets with parents for one session in each part to orient parents to the goals of treatment and teach them how to practice skills at home with their adolescent.”

Aggression Replacement Training is designed to deal with the emotion that most often interferes with our student’s use of pro-social behaviors. Specifically, anger control training assists with understanding the triggers that result in aggression and provides the means to learn self-control when anger is identified. Scenarios of potential conflict are modeled by the staff and role-played by the students, followed by the exchange of feedback on performance and discussion on conflict resolution by the entire group.

 Therapeutic Modalities

Students at Waterfall Canyon Academy have been identifying their problems for years. Solution focus therapy preferes to focus on the solution. We help you and your child identify solutions and shift the focus from the negativity of the problems to the positivity of solutions.

Similar to Solution Focus, the focus of Person Centered Therapy is not as much about the student’s problems but the student themselves. The therapeutic relationship is centered in genuine positive regard and empathy. Although there may be maladaptive behaviors, the students themselves, are viewed in a positive nature and treated as such. This empowers and motivates the students in the therapeutic process.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, allows students to focus on how their own thoughts and beliefs about the world around them effect their emotions and behaviors. By learning to confront distorted thought patterns and reframing them they attain a more regulated emotional state and learn to respond and not react.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT, is a form of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) that has a greater focus on emotional and social aspects. Many students at Waterfall Canyon Academy struggle with intense emotional responses that interfere with their ability to appropriately interact socially. The four components of DBT (Mindfulness, Interpersonal Skills, Distress Tolerance, Emotional Regulation) allow them to better respond to emotionally stimulating triggers and regulate more quickly.

This style is often used with students that are more resistant to therapy and more oppositional. This technique avoids telling students what to do and instead focuses on understanding the motivation, listening with empathy and empowering individuals to set and achieve goals.

Waterfall Canyon Academy teaches, models, and role plays appropriate social skills daily, formally and informally, at every opportunity with our students. Additionally students attend Aggression Replacement Training (ART) in a group setting that focuses on anger management and social skills training called “Skill Streaming.”  Students learn the “Anger Control Chain” coupled with healthy social skills that strengthen their positive social interactions, emotional regulation and overall pro-social skills.

Brain mapping is a non-invasive method of analyzing brainwave dysregulation by recording and measuring electrical activity in the brain. The process takes about an hour. After a brain map is recorded we can then identify areas of dysregulation and develop protocols for Neurofeedback which helps strengthen and regulate dysregulated areas in the brain.

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Medication Management

Students suffering from chemical imbalances that contribute to behavioral and emotional difficulties may receive medication management, through our licensed, board certified, psychiatric provider.

We support a conservative approach towards medication and feel that the many additional interventions and strategies that Waterfall Canyon Academy offers combined with medication interventions when needed, provides the students with balanced treatment.

Nutritional Program

Our nutrition program focuses on providing homemade meals that are both healthy and hearty. We prioritize the care and well-being of the students we serve, with a particular emphasis on catering to the needs of students on the autism spectrum. Our dedicated team of cooks, present in every program, ensures that each meal is thoughtfully prepared to meet the nutritional requirements and preferences of our students. We understand the importance of providing nourishing meals that contribute to their overall well-being and development. Through our program, we aim to create a positive and supportive environment where students can enjoy delicious, homemade meals while receiving the nutrition they need to thrive.

Set Up An Assessment Today

Find out which program best suits the needs for you or a loved one.

Call Bree Green @ 801-645-2568

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