Northbound Academy provides young adults whose lives are challenged by addictions and mental health diagnoses with long term dual-diagnosis treatment in a residential therapeutic setting that also develops life skills, emotional maturity, and achievement in formalized education, the arts, and vocational skills
We specialize in treating young adults with the following issues:
- Alcohol and drug abuse or addictions
- Process Addictions
- Axis І & Axis ІІ Disorders
- Codependency & Trauma
- Life Skills Deficits
Founded in 2000, Northbound Academy Southern California Drug Rehab has helped to guide thousands of young adults along a path of honest self-discovery, ultimately allowing them to experience for themselves a better way of life that is the engagement of a lifestyle of “responsible recovery”, service to community, and passionate achievement in education or careers
Located in Wickenburg, Tucson, and Prescott Southern California, our young adult drug treatment communities are highly energetic milieus of learning, support, and development guided by our professional, experienced, and compassionate staff. Each of our campuses is nurtured by the recovery culture of these vibrant Southern California communities and anchored in the natural serenity and quiet beauty of the low and high Sonoran Desert landscapes with which they coexist.
Experiential Recovery: An Opportunity for Insight
There are no small glimpses of hope. For a suffering or self-destructing young man or woman, an honest insight into self or the experience of a little bit of the joy of living through a healthy lifestyle is the greatest gift that he or she could ever receive. For, with this transformative experience in which a young man or woman experiences the positive returns of healthy living and personal adjustment, they are provided the motivation to continue to act in their own highest good. They have learned a small element of respect for themselves and others. And we can see the beginnings of Self Love.
The entire community experience at Northbound Academy is engineered with the achievement of these life-changing events as our highest priority for each of our clients. As such, our experiential program structure and staff are discriminately and creatively optimized to best accommodate a young adult woman or man toward this important discovery. The final step is not taken by us.
We understand well that in order to create the highest statistical opportunity for success both during and after a treatment process for a young adult there are two essential requirements. The first requirement is that the treatment community is one that is therapeutically saturated with the treatment goals of our program. Everything experienced by a client of the Northbound program–from the daily schedule, staff selection, treatment plan, activities, to the program content—everything, is designed to be accommodating of the process of recovery.
. Second, length of stay is exceedingly important. The required curriculum is high in terms of life skills learning, emotional maturation, personal adjustment, and scholastic and creative achievement needed for a young adult to have a strong and healthy foundation for healthy living. This takes time. This foundation is required if a young person is to be successful long term.
Spirituality is an important element of our program. A reasonable definition of spirituality is as follows: Spirituality is the quality of the relationship one has with self, others, and when one chooses to explore it, with a Higher Power. We are guided by the 12 step principle that one must choose a Higher Power of his or her own understanding. Our clients engage in regular 12 Step work, yoga, meditation, tai chi, and martial arts. They have the option to attend Church services at a variety of different denominational churches. Creativity is also a pathway to spirituality. As such, we have regular art and music classes, creative writing, and a film program. The natural world is also a reflection of some people’s spiritual beliefs. We have therapeutic animals on campus including a horse pasture, we operate wilderness excursions, and we take clients on weekend hikes.
Family Program
We support the families of our clients with the stability of our experience, expertise, and compassion. It brings great purpose and satisfaction to walk with the family through their own process of recovery, ultimately guiding them to a better and more peaceful way of life. This process also creates a better chance for success for the young adult client as the family learns to interact and set boundaries with their loved one in more healthy ways.
The family who contacts us is always faced with substantial challenges. We patiently guide a family who is experiencing varying levels of crisis or unmanageability through a process that will result in real clarity. Clearly seeing the truth of the situation then will allow the family to implement solutions. This process requires active listening, inspired guidance, and it can sometimes require a great deal of time and energy. Our admissions staff, with whom families make first contact, know this well. They are also available to serve in direct interventions, family coaching sessions, and transportation to our program.
The Family Communications department at Northbound Academy assumes the responsibility of walking with the family while the affected loved one is at Northbound Academy. Our Family, “Team leaders”, act as case managers and devote their time exclusively to working with the families of our clients. They monitor progress, educate, support, and advise the family on recovery and codependency as it pertains to each unique family situation.
The family of the client will be invited out to three separate intensive workshops during the course of their family member’s stay at Northbound Academy. The Sobriety, Education, and Integrity workshops take place at 3 month intervals, last four full days and comprehensively treat the family as a whole through education and facilitated therapeutic list work, and family sessions.
Young Adult Community
We work only with young adult clients, and thus, an important focus of ours is on creating an environment that is safe, energetic, interactive, and fun. Our program activities include athletics, yoga, martial arts, skateboarding, swimming, guitar, piano, art, writing, and film production classes. Our residents take part in wilderness excursions, attend movies and sporting events, and are introduced to young peoples’ recovery events in order to include them in a lifelong community that can support and enrich their lives. Each week, our residents devote time to community service organizations, experiencing the benefits of selfless service to others. They are supported in their creative efforts to manage projects that raise money for the make-a-wish foundation and in they directly raise funds for charitable contributions to local causes. All of these experiences are designed to allow our young adults to experience fun and thereby become motivated to continue this new lifestyle and self-identification with the recovery process. Service allows for the letting go of some of the bonds of repetitive self-absorption and it allows for the experience of higher levels of joy.
The process of identification happens easily in our young adult community and residents form important friendships and alliances that can last a lifetime. Healthy relationships that support accountability to recovery norms are especially important for young adults, who tend to be very conscious of their peer group. These relationships are leveraged to create an environment at Northbound Academy that supports growth from all angles.
We would be doing our young adult clients a disservice if we did not provide them significant structure and life skills training. Young adults whose lives have been interrupted by substance abuse often have difficulties with managing life and maintaining healthy relationships. Many of these difficulties stem from an interruption of the maturation process, and the replacement of what are normally someone’s formative years with crisis, disturbance, and uncertainty. Our clients receive strong, stable structure and support and the program possesses solid guidelines that provide our young adults with a daily life design that becomes internally adopted into their lives and creates healthy long-term patterns.
More specifically, every aspect of the daily life is guided by our “Road to Excellence” process. Residents are tutored on and expected to develop and maintain excellent personal habits of order, cleanliness, hygiene, dress, proper nutrition, food shopping, culinary skills, personal finance and budgeting. These skills are developed through instruction and in-service demonstrations, and residents are held accountable by peers and staff. Sometimes it can be a little difficult in the beginning, but over time, our clients learn to appreciate the sense of self-esteem and satisfaction with this healthy lifestyle.
Higher-level life skills are also developed. Residents will, at an appropriate stage, take on positions of leadership as a House Manager Work Crew Foreman, Senior Resident, and Residential Advisor. These positions teach finer relational skills, management of situations, and offer opportunities for rewarding mentorship.
Aftercare
Gatehouse Academy pre-graduates undertake a rigorous transition planning phase before graduation that includes personally reflecting, creating a mission statement, conducting interviews, and creating a methodical step by step plan to continue recovery and achieve desired goals. Thus process is supplemented with career and educational testing and supported by the client’s treatment team.
Upon graduation, Northbound Academy offers Northbound College campuses in Prescott and Tucson, Southern California. These transitional living facilities, located in young adult and recovery-friendly Southern California cities, offer an essential step-down phase of support and outpatient treatment while the young adult begins to actively engage life through full or part-time college education and part-time employment. Each student will be led through phases of transitioning toward independent living. Students have access to world-renowned centers of learning located in Southern California. Some students will pursue more vocational opportunities such as automotive certifications, trade schools, or equine management.
Gatehouse Academy graduates become members of our growing, community of alumni. Our alumni program unites our graduates and families via special events, social networking memberships, parent groups, and tracking & monitoring aftercare services.
Many of our graduates take an interest in the field of chemical dependency treatment and use the experiences they have gained at Northbound to help others receive the same gift that they received.
Clinical
Gatehouse Therapeutic Health Services, our devoted and professional clinical staff, is comprised of a versatile and experienced team of counseling, psychological, and psychiatric specialists. Our clinicians specialize in treating dually-diagnosed young adults with co-occurring addictive disorders. The principles behind treatment at Northbound recommend precise, long-term assessment of behavior and mood, and the use of scientific practices that ensure the utmost in individualized care to each young adult client. Clients receive a full psychological and psychiatric assessment and a typical treatment plan includes individual therapy, group therapy, psychiatric appointments, and other supportive therapies. We are currently employing for use according to individual needs the following therapeutic elements: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral therapy, EMDR, Motivational Interviewing, Sexual Trauma and addiction therapy, Twelve Step Facilitation, Anger groups, trauma & grief recovery work, equine assisted therapy, art therapy, and gestalt therapies. In addition, clients and their families will be taken through a 3 part Family Workshop program during the course of a young adult’s stay (see Family Program).
Education
Our residents are very bright and talented young adults. Some are quite capable scholastically; others are talented in other ways. We have exceptional “in-the making” artists, musicians, craftsmen, writers, filmmakers, equine managers, and tradesmen. Addiction, other untreated diagnoses, low self esteem, and an unhealthy lifestyle, have frequently eroded away the successes of a young person who struggles with addiction and other challenges. Sometimes, a young adult has never really experienced much success. They have found it hard to find their way in life at all. In a healthy and supportive environment and while seizing positive changes through recovery, they can begin to thrive again or for the first time in their life in academics and/or other life passions.
Each young adult client will be guided by a personalized academic coach through a pre-scholastic assessment, the completion of at least (3 college courses or 1 High School semester or GED completion), career testing, and a full transition plan leading up to commencement that involves interviewing, the creation of a mission statement and the formation of a personal action plan taking into the next steps toward finishing a higher education degree or securing another life goal.
Our growing alumni include college graduates, MA’s, MFA’s, MD’s, skilled tradesmen and more. Most importantly, they have the experiential knowledge, preparation, and personal clarity to live authentic and happy lives.
