Located in North East Pennsylvania in the Poconos Mountains, Calo Teens Poconos (CTP) is a therapeutic environment for teen girls with an emphasis on Harmony and the Healing Circle of Females. Garden to table meals grown, harvested, and prepared by and with the girls, keeping in mind the specific dietary needs of adolescents physical and mental health. Calo Teens Poconos community focus is the development of relationships with family, caretakers, and peers through the Band of Regulation including Expressive Arts Rotations where girls choose an area of interest and work in relationship with their caretakers and peers to make a cultural impact on the Calo Teens Poconos community.

Utilizing Calo’s Accredited online curriculum and enhanced by experiential education in the out of doors, students will spend much of their school day engaged in the outdoors alongside their teachers.

Calo’s accredited curriculum offers a range of core subjects and electives (including math, science, literature, and the expressive arts), our primary goal is helping students learn to regulate their emotions and their behavior while engaged with their peers. Although a few of our students will graduate from Calo Teens Poconos, most of our students will return home to conventional schools. Using our relationship-based approach, we strive to help students become more self-aware learners.

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 with highly trained adventure staff and coaches to reach their fullest potential. Calo Adventure Therapy incorporates experiential learning at the heart of how we create growth opportunities for - building self-esteem and team work through challenge/ropes course, biking, boating, hiking, and service-learning projects within the greater community.

Calo’s state-of-the-art canine program is an integral part of each student’s experience. Teen girls at Calo 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.

If you would like to speak to an admissions counselor directly, please call 877-879-2256.