Calo’s state-of-the-art canine program is an integral part of our student’s experience. Our teenagers, have the opportunity to parent, foster and/or adopt a canine. Through this deep relationship with a golden retriever our students experience trust and empathy while learning how to bond with and care for someone external to themselves. As the student’s emotional life enriches we help students transfer this experience to care givers and parents. We call this Transferable Attachment. The very core lesson that countless conversations and traditional talk therapy never taught a student over the years is finally discovered experientially as a student is vulnerable to a loving, safe animal – “If my parents love me more than I love my canine, I do feel safe. I really can trust that they won’t leave me, hurt me or intentionally do harm.”

Students are automatically enrolled in the Canine Therapy Program upon admission to Calo. All students interested in fostering and/or adopting a Calo canine will complete sequential requirements leading up to fostering and/or adopting a Calo canine. This process is similar in many ways to the human foster/adoption experience and closely resembles the family services model many of our parents and/or students have experienced.

The Calo Adventure Program is based on the belief that our students need to be safely guided in the context of safe, trusting relationships by understanding and highly trained adventure staff and coaches to reach their full potential. Calo Adventure Therapy incorporates experiential learning at the heart of how we create growth opportunities for our students.

The program is designed to provide students the opportunity to challenge negative core beliefs, as well as gain mastery and self-confidence. Students are trained for a 25-30 mile bike ride on the Katy trail in Missouri through weekly fitness exercise routines and cycling excursions around campus. We also utilize weekly Ropes Course and other Adventure Activities. Service projects are also incorporated throughout the year.

While Calo offers a range of core subjects and electives, our primary goal is helping students learn to regulate their emotions and their behavior in a classroom. Although a few of our students will graduate from Calo, most of our students will return home to conventional schools with normal expectations. Using our relationship-based approach, we strive to help students become a more self-aware learner who is comfortable in a classroom.

Neurotherapy is an important intervention deeply imbedded in applied neuroscience. It provides tangible data on the progress of our students that shows if the brain is developing and growing. It allows us to look inside the brain to determine where the student’s symptoms are coming from, and gives us clues as to how to make all of our interventions more precise and effective.

Our neurotherpy is trauma informed. All of our technicians are trained to empower our students and to develop safe, accepting, and committed relationships. All of our neurotherapy interventions are paralleled by a strong supportive relationship with our technicians. This dynamic becomes a significant indicator of a successful experience.

Getting to Calo

From Lambert – St. Louis International Airport

From Kansas City International Airport

From Springfield-Branson National Airport

From Columbia Regional Airport

* Notice to GPS users: We have learned that most people entering our address in their GPS units are not being accurately led to our facilities. Please use the google maps' directions by clicking on one of the maps above. Thank you. Once you get to our facilities you can save the location in your GPS for future visits. If you must use your own GPS please use the cross streets of Bittersweet and Verbena in Lake Ozark, MO. This will get you within a block of our site. The direct GPS coordinates for our location are 38.202846,-92.737194.