secluded public lands. Charging up
to $30,000 for a stay of six to
eight weeks, the industry contends
immersion in nature - with a focus
on self-sufficiency - helps teens
who are estranged from their
parents, battling substance abuse or
coping with moderate mental illness.
The
camps face continual controversy:
Five teens died in Utah wilderness
programs between 1990 and 2002, and
a Utah teenager died in a Colorado
program in 2007. A federal report
released in October 2007 highlighted
deaths, abuse and misleading
marketing in camps and other
residential-treatment programs
across the country.
But Utah's 10 current programs
say they have abandoned "boot camp"
regimens tied to the abuses for a
gentler, more targeted approach.
They no longer welcome kids with
violent criminal histories or severe
mental illness. And they face some
of the nation's toughest state
rules, which include targets for
backpack weights, hiking
temperatures and calorie counts in
menus.
Nearly all of Utah's camps say
they have therapists with graduate
degrees, and engage parents as well
as the teens. Most say they minimize
coercion -such as making a teen get
out of bed or to carry his pack - in
favor of "inviting" students to make
positive choices.
Aspiro
guide Stephanie Gardner,
left, follows Jessica,
17, of Virginia, down a
sandy incline into
Coyote Gulch on July 31.
(Jim Urquhart/The Salt
Lake Tribune)
Campers are separated from wayward
friends, drugs and alcohol, and get
regular therapy, exercise and
healthful food. Generally, such a
setting would help troubled teens,
said Paul Florsheim, a psychology
professor at the University of
Wisconsin.
But proof that the camps create
lasting change, Florsheim and others
note, remains sparse.
Back on the redrock, Jessica
took a deep breath and agreed to go
on. Within minutes, she was grasping
a rope and picking her way down a
12-foot drop to a dry riverbed
below.
After
two months of therapy at camp, she
had revealed to her parents that a
sexual assault by an acquaintance
was behind her withdrawal and her
new friendship with a drug dealer at
home in Virginia.
"Being at Aspiro definitely
helped me ... not let it control my
life anymore," she said. "None of
this is really about the hiking.
It's about what you need to work
on."
Learning in nature: Teens at
Hanna-based Aspiro get "adventure
therapy" - mountain biking, rafting
and rock climbing in Utah's
"coolest" spots. While still
physically demanding, the program
offers modern comforts, such as
nylon frame backpacks and propane
stoves.
Overcoming physical limitations
helps kids push past problems at
home, said Dan Lemaire, its
25-year-old head of instruction. "I
don't think there's a place for
primitive skills only."
But the rest of Utah's camps
pitch hiking and survival skills -
making a fire using a bow and arrow,
setting traps for game -- as the
best way wilderness can break
through a teen's problems. The
element of risk in being isolated in
the desert makes therapy effective,
said Andrew Powell, a field director
for Outback Therapeutic Expeditions.
At Lehi-based Outback, kids
build backpacks from sticks and
leather, carve their own spoons from
juniper and are given talismans to
mark accomplishments.
Most of the teens in Utah camps
are from affluent white families
from around the country. Jason, a
17-year-old sent to Outback from
Arizona, said his grades plummeted
after he started smoking pot and
lying to his parents. He had been in
Utah for about six weeks when they
arrived for a July reunion.
He called to them with his
"bullroarer," a piece of wood swung
on a string to communicate across
open distances.
"I'm keeping mine forever. It's
the happiest thing to swing that and
know they'll be there," said Jason,
a thin teen with intense brown eyes.
"They saw me as a different person."
On an August day, the eight boys
in Jason's group were working on
therapy assignments, bathing and
restocking their food. Between
chores, they hollowed gourds for
carrying water with tiny abrasive
pebbles found at anthills.
The students were proud of
simple things - their handmade
Aboriginal didgeridoos; their
ability to "bust a coal" - or start
a fire with a drill-and-bow set,
twirling a wooden peg into a board.
"It's a tenet of any ancient
culture, whether it's a walkabout or
vision quest. You send the
adolescent out and they would learn
from the trees, rocks and skies.
It's enough for them to turn the
corner of their past," Outback
founder Rick Meeves said.
"This gets them away from all
their distractions, the video games
and from their failing environments,
where there's nothing for them to
listen to but the sound of their own
voice," he said.
Do camps work? Research on
long-term results for all types of
residential treatment for youth is
surprisingly scant, experts say.
Most research into wilderness
therapy focuses on whether it
improves the parent-child
relationship, seen as a key factor
in a teen's mental health.
Joanna Bettman, a University of
Utah professor of social work, has
tracked students at Aspen
Achievement Academy, a Loa-based
program where she first worked as a
field counselor in 1994.
For kids without antisocial
disorders or severe mental illness,
studies indicate wilderness therapy
does help that relationship, said
Bettman, also clinical director at
the Open Sky program in Durango,
Colo.
Still, the results of her
interviews with students - at
admission and seven weeks later at
discharge - were mixed.
Teens "got less angry with their
parents, but they also perceived
them to be less available to their
needs," Bettman said.
The most comprehensive studies
are the work of Keith Russell, an
associate professor of physical
education, health and recreation at
Western Washington University.
Industry, through its Outdoor
Behavior Healthcare Research
Cooperative, funds his research. But
he emphasizes that he controls his
data and how his findings are
released, and he ensures they
undergo peer review before
publication.
Russell uses a standard social
work questionnaire to gauge student
and parent perceptions of the
child's problems, from admission to
two years after discharge. "At
admission, kids are resistant to the
idea that they have issues they need
to work on," he said. "Parents ...
tend to exaggerate issues."
But after treatment and as time
passes, their perceptions begin to
align, which suggests they are
understanding one another better, he
said.
Russell's research has shown
teens who had been using drugs or
alcohol are generally still using
the substances one year after camp,
although less frequently. That
finding has spurred the industry to
better focus its substance abuse
treatment, he said.
About two-thirds of the teens in
Utah programs have substance abuse
issues, camp directors and
researchers said. Most kids go on to
some kind of aftercare, typically a
therapeutic boarding school, a cycle
that concerns critics.
Debating diagnosed teens:
Although Bettman and Russell caution
that wilderness therapy isn't
helpful for all troubled teens, Utah
camps claim to help children
diagnosed with depression, bipolar
disorder, eating disorders and other
illnesses.
Michael Merchant, president of
Monticello-based Wilderness Quest,
believes wilderness therapy can help
campers with mild to moderate mental
illness deal with side issues, such
as substance abuse or ruined
relationships.
He also asserts its outdoor
lifestyle can help tame behavior
caused by chemical imbalances in a
child's brain. "The right diet,
exercise, getting up with the sun,
will certainly help you chemically,"
he said.
At 15-year-old Red Cliff, based
in Enterprise, clinical director
Daniel Sanderson believes kids
sometimes use a diagnosis as a
crutch. He describes such a teen's
mind-set:
"As soon as I encounter a
situation that expects something
beyond my abilities, all I have to
[do is bring up] the abandonment
issues or abuse issues and that will
bring forth an cadre of individuals
who will remove it," he said. "In
spite of a diagnosis, the real
problem is the difficulties they
have experienced have allowed them
to take a 'developmental vacation.'
"
At camp, teens learn no one is
going to carry their pack just
because they are bipolar, Sanderson
summarized.
But Florsheim, formerly at the
University of Utah, said there is no
reliable research on whether camps
help children cope with mental
illness, and questions the programs'
long-term impact.
"Are you giving them the skills
they can take with them when they go
home? I'm skeptical of that," said
Florsheim, who worked in a Florida
camp as a young counselor 26 years
ago.
Before arriving at Aspiro,
14-year-old Kayla was diagnosed with
depression and attachment disorder.
The redhead with a soft
Southern-accented voice spent her
early childhood in foster homes. She
was adopted at age 8, but withdrew
from her family and began cutting
herself.
In camp, she found solace in the
outdoors and her therapy sessions.
She was "really excited" about an
upcoming visit from her parents.
"But I'm kind of scared, too,"
she said, a feather tucked in her
hair. "It'll be the first time my
parents know I'm being genuine. ...
I want to look them in the eyes and
say, 'I love you' and for them to
know I'm not faking it."
