As time as passed since the New Parent Orientation and the Parent Retreat (April 27^th-, I can’t help but reflect on the tremendous opportunities for learning, activities and relationships that were had.  From the initial meeting of the New Parents Orientation where we covered the basics of treatment expectations and the therapeutic model to the informative presentation of The Anatomy of Peace by Dr. Ken Huey, the time was invaluable to connect with other parents, meet the staff and therapists, and enjoy some good meals.

I can’t help but still think of the humorous anecdotes and stories Ken relayed in his message that communicated that we all are human with our personal flaws but yet desire relationship and often climb “Into the box” with others.  It was empowering to consider that we have the ability to rise above our own frustrations and more effectively connect with others by having a “Heart of Peace” and engaging them as people with feelings rather than objects.  This became increasingly evident as the Parent Retreat progressed and parents as well as students talked openly with one another about getting stuck “In the Box” and needing to recognize that “If I am mad, I am wrong.”  I was actually able to witness a parent and child engage in repair with regard to many past experiences of being mad and losing their “Heart of Peace”.

One of the most meaningful experiences was the opportunity to participate in the creation of the Mosaic pictures where the families worked together to smash tiles and creatively make a picture which represented “Peace” in their family.  I was not disappointed by the creativity and thought which went into the project.  Each family created an amazing picture using just the tiles which represented things which were important to their family (crosses, hearts, birds, sunsets, people, etc.).  The project concluded the following day with the activity of grouting the picture and then gathering together where each family shared what the picture represented to them, very powerful and memorable.

The retreat was the perfect opportunity to enjoy simply sitting down to a meal with parents and students with whom I normally don’t have a lot of interaction and be able to laugh, talk, and connect.  I always enjoy the time to take a walk with a family, sit by the fire, listen to them during the Parent Support Group, and play fun games with.  The retreat is that time to experience so many different aspects of relationships that prove to me so incredibly valuable.  This seems to be reinforced by the student who becomes resistant to connect with their parents and attempts to ignore them throughout the retreat, yet it turns out to be extremely meaningful for the parents in connecting with other parents, students, staff, and themselves.

As the retreat comes to a close I always am filled with a deep sense of gratitude for the families and the opportunity we have had to grow, learn, and share with each other. Even as I sit in my office a few weeks later, I can’t help but reflect on the relationships I made and the experience we shared connecting with one another.  Thank you to all the families who attended!

 We have gotten some nice press recently and I wanted to share that on our blog. The following article can be seen at strugglingteens.com. Here is the URL if you want to see the article there: http://www.strugglingteens.com/artman/publish/CALO-VR_110314.shtml

Kimball Delamare is an expert in the residential treatment field and we were glad to have him spend some time with us. Here is what he wrote about CALO:

CALO (CHANGE ACADEMY LAKE OF THE OZARKS)

Visit by Kimball DeLaMare, LCSW
Report on visit and consulting work January, 2011:
Kimball@delamares.com
801-698-7704

Over three years ago, I had the opportunity to work closely with Dr. Ken Huey and his staff at CALO as they prepared for a Joint Commission survey. At the time CALO had been open for several months, but was still in its formative stages as a provider of residential treatment to adolescents with emotional dysregulation, relational challenges stemming primarily from early trauma and attachment problems and other significant concerns.

The staff had done a lot of research, had trained with national experts in attachment, such as Dr. Dan Hughes, Dr. Ron Federici, and Dr. Bruce Perry, and had worked to learn from leaders in the treatment of younger children in settings such as Sandhill, Villa Santa Maria, Intermountain Children's Home and Forest Heights Lodge.
Combining tried and true methods of intervention with their own innovations--which included "transferable attachment", experiential challenges where individual mastery could occur, and high quality relational therapy initiatives--they had developed an effective model.

As I visited on the campus early this year and then spent a few days with Ken I found that the good initial work had evolved into a mature, well-integrated model. Here are some of the key elements that impressed me:

1.   Transferable Attachment as a key component - CALO's initial work to utilize Golden Retrievers as catalysts to teach key relational skills such as trust, nurture, responsibility, empathy and security has been remarkably fine-tuned. Dogs now are often a complete part of a student's day. They board in student rooms and receive all daily care from individual students. They even form into an interactive "performance team" with students who are able to successfully work with their dogs to follow complex commands, complete obstacle courses, and behave far better than the little Maltese we have in our home. The feelings, behaviors, frustrations, achievements and bonding that occurs along the way as students work with the dogs is rich with lessons that transfer to person to person relationships, and the clinical staff are quick to capitalize and impress such learning. I look forward to the research that is coming from this innovative work.

2.   A true relationally-oriented model, CALO does not merely give "lip service" to the goal of providing students with relationally-based support. Training and selection of all staff members has become a passion with managers who possess ever-increasing skill to find the right staff for a model that demands individualized support for behavioral and emotional crises. The CALO model provides on-demand one on one support, so it has to have a rich staff to student ratio. CALO is more than one to one during the waking hours with a mix of 1:3 direct care (residential coaches) staff to students. Adding in therapists, teachers, recreational staff, and nursing staff, there is always the opportunity for the personal support many students with attachment challenges need. Change Academy had a goal to provide strong, ongoing training. Most places begin to stray from such goals over time, but not CALO. I have found comprehensive training seminars with direct care staff regularly receiving 1.5 hours of clinical training every week. CALO has been creative in the development of training mechanisms such as articles, videos and accompanying quizzes to ensure initial understanding followed by live observation of learned skills.

3.   Improved development and integration of allied services--

CALO is one of the only residential treatment programs where there is 24 hour nursing.

CALO combines student-specific individual classes with qualified teachers and over 60 on-line courses to meet the unique needs of students, many of whom lack certain foundational principles in subject areas and consequently fall further behind if placed in general subject classes.

CALO's recreational work has matured to a level where service, experiential initiatives, mastery of water sport skills, hiking and running are well integrated into the treatment paradigm.

4.   Plant improvements - Change Academy has been clever in leveraging a large, open area between student rooms to allow observation, socially engineered interactions of varying intensity and instant access to staff support. All while they have carefully exposed students to many interactive experiences that gently propel relationship work, instead of isolation and segmentation, that youth with attachment and emotional dysregulation challenges typically seek, often to their detriment. The plant is warm, colorful and fits student life well.

5.   CALO is working to better understand aftercare challenges through the ongoing participation of therapists with most families after discharge, but the transition to other caregivers and to a community where students experienced past trauma and failure continues to be a challenge. Academics have improved but will benefit from recent initiatives to improve initial assessment and utilize the special education teaching staff more effectively with the full treatment team. 

All in all, it has been exciting to see the focused work CALO does with a population many less courageous professionals have been hesitant to serve. Reactive Attachment, trauma related fears, older adoptees, those with some spectrum related issues all benefit from this model. I look forward to how the Change Academy will look in another three years! 

Recently a CALO student, Henry (not real name), departed CALO with his adopted canine Charger. The canine adoption details can be shared another time but one of the final steps in the adoption process is for a student to write an essay based on the title, “How I will transfer the interdependent relationship I share with my canine to my human relationships.” In short, we are asking the student to describe what we call "transferable attachment."

In about a month I will present at a professional conference about CALO’s unique “transferable attachment.”  For now, read Henry’s essay that was shared at his finalization ceremony so you can have a sneak peak at the amazing impact these golden retrievers have to help students learn about our model (Trust of Care, Trust of Control, Trust of Self, and Interdependence) and transferable attachment.

“Charger depends on me for lots of things. He counts on me to play with him. This is important so that he can get his energy out.  He needs me to potty him because he cannot open doors to go outside by himself.  Charger needs me to feed him.  I put his food in a bowl and make sure that he has clean water to drink.  After his surgery, Charger depended on me to take care of him and make sure he did not pull his stitches out.  Charger also depends on me to bathe him and keep him clean.  One of the biggest ways Charger depends on me is for me to train him so that he can be off leash and know when to be calm and when to have fun.  This is very important so that he can come to live with me at home and be socially acceptable.

I depend on Charger for things too.  I count on him to keep me calm when I don’t have the greatest feelings.  He stays calm with me rather than be all rowdy.  When I feel lonesome Charger is there to keep me company.  When I want to get energy out, Charger plays with me inside.  Usually I will throw the ball with him either in the milieu or in the pit.  Once I got full time [integration] with him, he started having really bad attachment problems.  At first he was way too dependent on me and every time I left the room he would bark so that I would have to come back.  Nowadays he doesn’t bark as much because he knows that I will come back later and take care of him.  These are some of the ways Charger and I depend on each other.

At home, I depend on my family to keep me safe.  The main way that I feel safe at night is when my parents lock up all the doors.  I know they are home if I need anything.  My family is learning to help me deal with not so good feelings by giving me some personal space.  This helps me to be able to calm down quicker and then talk about it.  I also depend on my mom for getting my laundry clean and for keeping me fed.  I could do it on my own but I am used to my mom doing it.  I like that better.  I depend on my dad to be able to hunt.  My dad has helped me do that by sometimes taking me and my brother to go shoot.  He also took the hunter safety class with me.  I was dependent on my dad to teach me lots of different things like learning how to drive and hunt.

My family is dependent on me too.   They depend on me to help do things around the house or do errands because I can drive now.  My mom depends on me to talk to her in the morning because my dad and brother are even grumpier.  According to my mom, I am the least grumpiest in the morning.  My family depends on me to not be so uptight.  The rest of them are very tense and I help them relax and be more laid back.  My animals depend on me here to pet them and let them in and outside.  When I was little I was dependent on my parents to potty train me just like I have to do with Charger.  Now I am depending on my parents to help me learn how to be a good adult. 

These are just some of the ways that Charger and I are interdependent and my family and I are interdependent with each other.  Charger is helping me learn how to be more helpful when others depend on me, and I am learning to be dependent on others too.”

We recently received a very nice letter from a graduate of CALO. Instead of typing it up I thought it would be nice to read the letter in her own handwriting so I have scribbled out her name at the end and in the middle and am posting her original letter here. This young lady came to us as the most angry student I think we have seen. It took very little to set her off and start a hate stare. A simple "hello" was all it took at times. After a number of months that began to change and we eventually saw the girl who comes out so warmly in this letter. Enjoy.

Here is the second page:

I appreciate the positive feedback I have gotten from some current and former parents of CALO students. That feedback has centered around posts on this blog highlighting successes of former students. When I get such reports of success from parents, and students themselves, it is a job-satisfaction-enhancer. Our work at CALO can be quite difficult at times and to hear positive comments can make the difficult times well worth it. With that in mind, I have another email I want to post here that came in yesterday. The mother of a former student sent it in, and I have changed names only to protect confidentiality. This young lady, Sharon I will call her, had a difficult transition home and things had been very emotional and rough for three weeks. Sharon parted the family home for a few days and then returned. Sharon and the family had some trust to rebuild. They were able to do that work and proceed with plans for Sharon to enter college. That background will probably help make this post make sense. Here is the email:

Hi Ken:

I just wanted you to know that Sharon went to her first day of college and loved it. She aced the class and got a congratulations from the teacher afterward for her participation!

Of course, for the last three weeks her anxiety and her behavior had almost derailed everything we learned and achieved together at CALO. It has been really awful, to tell the truth. Not "it", but "she". And she had permission to get a job instead. Until she got into the car today I did not know if she would go.  But the dogs and I escorted her down the street and over to her school (5 minutes) and 90 minutes later came a triumphant phone call. Transitions are hard, we knew this, but this one was one of the worst. But she is there, now psyched, and we expect her to do well. Her experience with CALO'S dogs created  a serious interest in Veterinary Technology as well as teaching history. Who knew.

One more thing. Her boyfriend has been very supportive of her and has really helped her to remain on track with school! He was a calm voice all month long while she was totally off kilter especially the last two weeks. You never know how things are going to turn out.

We know she owes her success today, as hard as it came, to CALO and what she found there. She gets it too, and has also found a great therapist, and she is committed to that as well.

Take care, Julie

A few weeks earlier I got an email from Landon, our Clinical Director. He had just gotten off the phone with a different student who has been home for just over one year. She wanted to say hello. She is doing very well. Landon then sent out an email to all of us working at CALO. I have included it below with names changed:

Hello Staff,

Many of you who have been employed for at least a year will remember a student who aged out of CALO last July, Lori T.  Lori telephoned CALO today, as she has done a handful of times in the past 12 months, and we chatted for a bit.  I am pleased to report that Lori is doing very well.  She has held down a steady job working with kids and has strong goals and aspirations in her life.  She sounded genuinely positive and happy—still a touch awkward but you can tell she has really made strides in her interactions and relationships.  Her primary purpose for calling was out of concern for friends and former students and how she can help out—another great sign.

I asked Lori about Diva (her adopted CALO dog) and she said she is doing great but likes to eat too much and has gained some weight so Lori is going to exercise her more.  Lori asked about CALO, students, changes and about many of you staff and how you are doing.  She could not believe the growth we have experienced recently and shared she thinks about CALO all of the time.  She even asked if I kept a picture she made me before she left.  You can tell CALO is still a big part of her life.  Lori closed our conversation by asking that I tell everyone hello for her and “please tell them thanks cause’ I don’t think I did that enough.” 

Those of you wondering if you are making a difference may not realize it on a daily or even monthly basis but the seeds you are planting truly take root in their own due time.  Thank you so much for your efforts to bless lives!

Ken writing now--I really miss Lori and am so glad to hear how well she is doing. She struggled mightily when she first got to CALO. Eye contact was very poor. Touch in an safe manner was not possible for her. I couldn't even get her to give me a high five for a long time. She changed all of that in a most impressive way and now she is in an emotional space where she reaches out to friends spontaneously and appropriately. She smiles often and interacts well with those around her. She is not afraid of safe physical contact like shaking hands or a friendly touch on the shoulder. Given a safe environment with intensive therapeutic support and a solid clinical model and our students make massive changes. I love my job.

The following is a message written by one of our graduates, Andrew.  Andrew has since entered our transition program where he is learning more skills and tools to better equip him to live interdependently.  Andrew was in a few treatment centers before his parents found CALO. It's fair to say that prior to Andrew coming to CALO there was much uncertainty and doubt surrounding Andrew's future and his ability to be safe.  Now Andrew is on the verge of his first year of college and will be a long-term, productive member of society. His name and article are being used with his permission.

"The obstacles in my life created hardship and a lot of problems. Eventually it came to a point where I needed the help of residential care. After finding that the first two residential treatment centers I was at were not able to meet my needs, the decision was made that I come to CALO.

The biggest factor that made me agree with the decision was that I was told there were canines at CALO. My second day I was offered the chance to take one of the canines, Rikki, out to potty. At first I was unsure if I was allowed to, because I thought I would have to earn the privilege of playing with a dog. I was used to having to earn things in other programs. It turned out that Jeanna, the Canine Therapy Program Supervisor, saw my hesitation and told me I could handle Rikki. Ever since that moment I hit it off with the canines. They have been the cornerstone of my therapy.

Through parenting the canines, I learned that a lot of the things my parents did to help such as discipline and boundaries were actually necessary. This helped bring understanding and gave me the support to start working on what became a nonexistent relationship with my parents. I starting working with a canine named Jake in August and fell in love. He has been my motivation through my time here at CALO.

I have become quite successful in my own life now; I graduated the full-time CALO program and have been one of the first students in the transition program.  I was accepted by multiple colleges and I have an on-campus job working for Jeanna. Now I work with Jeanna every week and help other students find the joys of working with canines, as well as explaining how they helped me. I believe that these wonderful animals can help all of our students through their struggles, even if they are like me and unable to adopt and bring a canine home."

As you know, we get emails and letters from former students from time to time. I got a short one from a former student just a week or so ago. She wanted me to pass it on to our front line staff. With her permission I am also putting it in this blog post. Here is what she wrote--unedited:

Hey CALO Today is my prom!!!!!!!!!!! ill send pictures later this week!!!! I have adopted a 10 year old Boxer from a family I know who's moving away. Her name is Samantha but we call her sam or sammy. ill send pictures of her also later this week. I have my license now. I heard the shake it song today and it made me think of the good o'l times on the boat! I am still looking for work and have not been so lucky finding a job although i could be trying harder than i am. My parents and i are getting along much better from when i first got home. My dad and I are closer than we've been in a REALLY long time. I hope all is well there and i miss all of you guys. When you see ranger give him lots of love :)

I know it is not a long email but it is just the right length to give all of us at CALO a picture of how this young lady is doing. It is hard to express how happy it makes me to read her words. You see, I (with one other staff member) was the one who picked her up from another program about two years ago. Officials from that other program had brought her to the airport to meet us and we escorted her to Missouri. She was dressed scantily and had quite an attitude. She came across as angry, entitled, and emotionally dangerous. I was alarmed for her and hopeful she would decide to make some changes. Her stay with us was difficult but ultimately productive and she has blossomed beautifully. She does not resemble the young lady I met at the airport at all. She still has an intense personality but it is channeled in all the right ways. She is intelligent and thoughtful. She should be very proud of what she has accomplished and the wonderful young lady she has become.

Every so often we receive communication from former students and parents of students. It is nice to hear how they are doing and what they are up to. I recently received a letter from a parent whose daughter had returned home seven weeks ago. The parent was giving us an update and had this to say about his daughter, who I will call Julia. He wrote: “As of today, Julia has been home for 7 weeks. To date, we have had no ‘volcanic behavioral eruptions.’ Whenever Julia has been anywhere close to a meltdown, she draws upon the coping skills learned at CALO, which certainly includes spending time with her dog, Anya. We continue regular therapy with Diana Giest, the wonderful attachment therapist you met during her visit to CALO last summer, which has been helpful. Ken, it’s difficult to put into words how much it means to Mom and Dad to not have to be ‘hypervigilent’ in our parenting, to protect Julia from poor choices. At this time of year especially, we are thankful to you and your colleagues at CALO for their help and support. You do amazing work!”

That letter alone was quite kind and I am grateful for this parent’s words. That parent then sent a handwritten note from Julia. Here is that letter. Just click on the pdf below:

student EK letter.pdf (1.00 mb)

This was a “payday” letter and the reason we do what we do at CALO. Just wanted to share it with you.

 “CALO has been a gift.”  Nov’08 Graduate

“We aren’t just a family, we are what a family is.”  Nov’08 Graduate

 “Being at CALO saved my life.  I no longer want the PAIN to comfort me, but rather the comfort of my mother’s arms”.  Dec’08 Graduate

 “CALO became my home.  It felt like home.  I felt safe there and I knew no matter how bad I screwed up someone was always there”.   Dec’08 Graduate

 “ I was lost before I came to CALO.” May ‘09 Graduate 

‘I like having a good relationship with my parents.” May ‘09 Graduate

“I can leave CALO feeling better about myself, knowing more about myself, and I can honestly say that my mom trusts me”. June’09 Graduate 

“Nothing changed in my life until I started working in therapy.” July ‘09 Graduate

“My other programs did help me with my  behavior but CALO helped me find myself.”  July ‘09 Student