Youth learn through experience

at Randolph Children’s Home

 

After an intensive and rigorous review, the Adventure Recreation & Therapy Program and the Equestrian Program at Randolph Children’s Home were recently reaccredited by the Association of Experiential Education, an international accrediting body.

      The programs help youth learn through experiences such as caring for and riding horses, kayaking, hiking and snowshoeing. The idea isn’t to make the youth better snowshoers, but to make them better people.

      Teens who have engaged in high-risk behaviors often respond to approaches that provide them with opportunities to learn through experience, explained Tony Walters, licensed clinical social worker and program director. For example, it’s one thing for a counselor to assure a child that he can overcome obstacles in his life; it’s another thing for a child to learn that lesson by facing his fear of heights and climbing 30 feet into a tree on a high ropes course.

      The accreditation team noted that Randolph Children’s Home makes sure that staff are competent to direct the activities they undertake.

      “It’s important to ensure we have risk management practices and procedures in place, and that we provide activities safely,” Walters said.

      New Directions is beginning to expand experiential education to some of its other programs. Youth from Global Village Therapeutic Foster Care and the Post-Adoption Program have participated in horseback riding at Randolph Children’s Home as part of their treatment and recreational programming.

      This past summer, youth from Wyndham Lawn Home for Children in Lockport joined youth from Randolph Children’s Home for a summer expedition to the Adirondack Mountains and on Lake Champlain. When they came together for the trip, they quickly formed a cohesive group, aided by Guided Group Interaction (GGI), which is used at both residential campuses. Each evening in GGI, youth participated in frank discussions of behaviors that held back an individual or the group, and most important, made commitments to the group’s success.

      New Directions Youth and Family Services helps children with emotional and behavioral problems, along with their families. The agency offers preventive and community-based treatment, educational services, supervised independent living, therapeutic foster care, non-secure detention, group homes and residential treatment. The Web site is at www.ndyfs.org.

      For information on admissions, call Ed Krieger, intake coordinator, at 358-3636, ext. 279.