Outpatient treatment can offer many benefits for teens who require flexibility in their schedules. If your child needs addiction treatment, but you don’t want their academics to be affected any more than it has been, look into outpatient treatment that offers academic services.
What Is Outpatient Treatment?
Outpatient treatment allows children to receive treatment without disrupting their everyday responsibilities such as home and school life. Outpatient treatment is typically the next step after completing intensive inpatient treatment in a rehabilitation facility. It is used when drug use is not severe enough for detox or inpatient treatment or when a person’s behaviors aren’t considered a threat to themselves or others.
Outpatient treatment is also best suited for someone who requires a lot of flexibility in their day-to-day life, such as teens juggling many responsibilities.
The Benefits of Outpatient Treatment
- Flexibility: Outpatient treatment offers more flexibility than inpatient rehabilitation. Unlike residential treatment, outpatient therapy allows your child the opportunity to go home after therapy, stay involved in school, attend extracurricular activities, or work. It doesn’t have to disrupt their schedule completely.
- Family involvement: You don’t have to drop your teen off at a residential facility and stay at a distance during their recovery. Family involvement is crucial to teen recovery. It gives the teen support from the people that care for them the most during a hard time in their life. You get to be active in your child’s treatment process and also learn skills to help support their drug-free lifestyle.
- Skill application: Because treatment is only for a set amount of time throughout the day, they are able to apply the skills and coping strategies they learn in treatment to their natural environment. Unlike residential treatment, which may sometimes occur in a location away from home, teens can learn how to exist in their natural environment without drugs. This can teach them time management, how to juggle responsibilities, and offers a plethora of resources to use when help is needed.
Whether virtual or in-person, IOP is equally beneficial for those who have completed residential treatment or meet the criteria for IOP only.
Why Are Academics Important in Rehab?
Addiction can have a huge impact on a child’s academic performance. School and coursework could be a trigger for your teen’s substance use. Because they spend a majority of their day at school, there are many influences they may face in that environment.
Your child may struggle academically and use substances to cope with the embarrassment or stress they feel. Difficulty with organization and keeping up with their schoolwork could also be challenging. Friends and peer pressure can play a big role in your teen being introduced to substances and lead to addiction.
Choosing Residential Treatment
When you decide that residential treatment is necessary, understand that this decision can disrupt your child’s schooling. Your teen will have to miss school for rehab, where the length of stay is dependent on your child’s progress. Continuing academic coursework during treatment is important to a teen’s recovery.
If a child is out of school for too long, this can cause regression in their skills. For example, if a child does not get enough practice with reading, they may have difficulty returning to school and reading at their grade level. This can cause a teen’s self-confidence to decrease, which can become a trigger for drug use. It can also cause a setback for your teen to progress to the next grade or even prevent graduating.
Choose a Plan That Suits Your Teen’s Needs
During treatment, all or most of the aspects influencing your teen’s addiction must be addressed to get to the root of what may be causing It. Having your child attend a center that offers academic services allows your child’s treatment plan to incorporate their schooling. Not only does it help keep your child on track, but it also allows your child to get academic help like tutoring and teaching your child skills they need to help improve their academics.
Offering Academic Support
Every outpatient program that offers academic services will have its own available options. Some treatment centers are able to have their patient’s academic credits transferred to their high school, which can count towards graduation.
Teachers can assess what areas of school your child needs help with and provide them with assistance throughout their coursework. Whether they are in middle school and need help transitioning to high school coursework or are a senior preparing for college, there are many academic resources available such as:
- SAT/ACT prep
- Licensed tutors and teachers
- alternative school
- College prep
- Psychoeducational classes
- GED testing
- Alternative schools
Here at Clearfork Academy, we partnered with the University of Texas charter school to help our patients stay on track academically while also helping them through sobriety. We believe that teens have the brightest minds and that addiction has hindered their light. Our partnership with UT charter schools offers on-campus classes taught by teachers that work with our residential staff. We strive to help teens reach success in sobriety and their academic lives. Your teen will have the best resources to live a successful and sober lifestyle. However, the first step towards overcoming addiction is admitting when your teen needs help and taking action to get them help. Clearfork Academy is an addiction treatment center for teens that helps teens manage behavioral and mental disorders. Let us be the home to help your family and teens heal from addiction and enjoy life again. To learn more about our residential and outpatient treatment options, contact Clearfork Academy at (817) 259-2597.
Originally from the Saginaw, Eagle Mountain area, Austin Davis earned a Bachelor of Science in Pastoral Ministry from Lee University in Cleveland, TN and a Master of Arts in Counseling from The Church of God Theological Seminary. He then went on to become a Licensed Professional Counselor-Supervisor in the State of Texas.
Austin’s professional history includes both local church ministry and clinical counseling. At a young age, he began serving youth at the local church in various capacities which led to clinical training and education. Austin gained a vast knowledge of mental health disorders while working in state and public mental health hospitals. This is where he was exposed to almost every type of diagnosis and carries this experience into the daily treatment.
Austin’s longtime passion is Clearfork Academy, a christ-centered residential facility focused on mental health and substance abuse. He finds joy and fulfillment working with “difficult” clients that challenge his heart and clinical skill set. It is his hope and desire that each resident that passes through Clearfork Academy will be one step closer to their created design.
Austin’s greatest pleasures in life are being a husband to his wife, and a father to his growing children. He serves at his local church by playing guitar, speaking and helping with tech arts. Austin also enjoys being physically active, reading, woodworking, and music.
