Defiant teen get life back on track with help from Venture Academy

Nick was a troubled teen who could justify just about anything from staying out all night to talking back to his mom. That was before a stay at Venture Academy for troubled teens, where he realized he and his mom deserved better.

“I was sneaking out and stuff and my mom would call me and tell me to come home because it’s curfew and I wouldn’t come home for a few days. I’d just text her and say I’m not coming home.”

Nick, 15, admits he spent a lot of time and energy resisting rules and boundaries he can now see were there to protect him.

“My mom’s rules are reasonable. I think I was just being unreasonable,” he said during one of his final days at the treatment program. “At the time I just wanted to hang out with my friends and wanted nothing to do with my family.”

Venture Academy helped Nick put his life back on track emotionally, physically, and academically. Highlights of his stay including cave spelunking, jamming with new friends at a local rock school, and discovering he learns best in a one-to-one environment rather than in a large classroom setting.

“While here I found out I like learning through correspondence better than in the classroom and I think it works because I pay attention more when I’m just reading it for myself.”

Nick is no longer expected to drop out or fail high school. Instead, he plans to finish grade 12, graduate, and go on to college where he hopes to study writing.

“I’ve got my priorities straightened out and my goals. I didn’t really care too much about school before I came, but I want to finish school now and I know what I want to do when I get out of school,” he said. (Venture Academy) helped me figure that out.”

His advice to parents worried their child may resent them for sending them to Venture Academy is to do it anyway.

“That won’t happen,” he said. “I think they’ll have a stronger relationship actually. They (the teen) may be a bit angry about being sent away but you forget about that in the first week. Today I can actually have a normal conversation with my mom and we get along. That would never have happened before.”

About Venture Academy Venture Academy for troubled teens is a residential treatment program for teens that provides an alternative to boot camp for teens. Venture Academy specializes in helping teens struggling with problems that may include drug or alcohol abuse, low self esteem, depression, ADHD, conduct disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, and/or have school issues including past suspensions, truancy, and underachieving.

Top 5 Reasons to Say "Yes" to Venture Academy For Troubled Teens and "No" to Boot Camp

1. Venture Academy for troubled teens provides intensive, ongoing clinical therapy focused on providing long lasting results and permanent behavioural changes. We are not a boot camp offering parents a quick – but temporary – fix.

2. Each Venture Academy teen lives in a private home where they receive ongoing support from trained parent counsellors. At boot camp, troubled teens live in a group-style living environment surrounding by teens with problems as bad, or worse, than the ones they’re dealing with.

3. Boot camps force teens to make the right decisions. At Venture Academy, teens learn and practice the art of good decision making.

4. Venture Academy provides therapeutic wilderness excursions that are fun rather than punitive.

5. Boot camps can be a catalyst for change that is often short lived. At Venture Academy, we strive for nothing less than permanent long-lasting change.


Visit www.ventureacademy.ca for more information on our 30-day assessment program, longer-term treatment, and our summer semester.

Teen Drinking Never Safe

By Anne-Rachelle McHugh
Guest Blogger

Thinking about hosting a “safe” teen party where booze will be served? Think again.

Adults who condone teen drinking or turn a blind eye to it risk being judged by society and by a legal system that comes down hard on adults who facilitate underage drinking.

In Vancouver, a woman was recently charged with failing to provide the necessities of life after a 16-year-year girl was found dead at an underage drinking party the woman was “chaperoning.” In Manitoba, a couple faces similar charges after a 15-year-old girl drinking at their home wandered outside and froze to death.

These incidents highlight concerns many parents have about teen drinking and their role in educating kids about its responsible use.

Proponents of supervised drinking say it teaches teens how to drink responsibly in a safe environment. Critics say it provides parents with a false sense of security and does nothing to protect teens from the hazards associated with underage drinking including alcohol poisoning, drunk driving, sexual assaults, and unplanned pregnancies.

Psychologist Michael J. Bradley says adults who don’t repeatedly tell kids that drinking is dangerous are adults who silently tell them that drinking is okay.

“Contradictory to the myth, kids do listen when adults speak with respect,” Bradley writes in his blog.

Bradley, author of “Yes Your Teen is Crazy,” says the teen brain is prone to the addictive effects of substances like alcohol. He says alcohol is associated with everything bad that happens to teens including car crashes, failing grades, sexual assaults, arrest, unintended pregnancy, STDs and suicide.

“Do not provide booze to teens on prom night or any other time,” he writes. ”If I insult you with that suggestion; congratulations. You are not among the 33 per cent of parents who voluntarily provide alcohol to adolescents, nor among the 24 per cent who drink with their teens.”

Venture Academy’s Gordon Hay understands Bradley’s stance on teen drinking.

Hay says it’s important parents remember that teenagers “are children in adult bodies” and that alcohol is a powerful, mood-altering drug that affects their mind and body in unpredictable ways.

“Your son or daughter may look grown up but the reality is their brain is not fully developed and they are incapable of making critical decisions that you as the parent must. What that means in a nutshell is it’s your job as a parent to reign in your child, set limits, and be their parent, not their friend.”

Hay is founder of Venture Academy for Troubled Teens, a residential assessment and treatment program for teens dealing with problems that may include alcohol and drug abuse. Venture Academy is a boot camp alternative with programs in BC and Ontario.

Statistics Box

• People who start drinking at a young age are more likely to develop alcoholism within 10 years of when they first started to drink. A study conducted by the National Health Institute found 47% of people who began drinking before the age of 14 developed a dependence on alcohol compared to the 9% of people who began drinking at age 21 or older.

• A national survey of students in grades 7–9 found that about two-thirds had already consumed alcohol. Another survey of Canadian youth aged 15–24 showed that 83% were current or past-year drinkers.

• Nationally, more than one third of students in grade 7-9 have binged on alcohol. That number increases to 40% for 15-19 year-olds. (Substance Abuse in Canada: Youth in Focus report)

• Alcohol-related trauma is the number one preventable cause of death among young Canadians. A survey conducted by Smartrisk found almost 45% of all youth deaths involved motor vehicle crashes and of those nearly 40 % were alcohol related. (2005 Smartrisk Survey)

• An Ontario study found about one in seven licensed students drink and drive. Almost 30% of those surveyed reported having driven with a drinking driver. (2005 Ontario Student Drug Use Survey)

Rebellious teen and her mom reconnect with help from Venture Academy

Four weeks at Venture Academy taught Rachel something she may never have learned otherwise: that her mother really did love her.

“I’d been here about a month when I realized she does love me and that she wouldn’t send me to this program to get help for both of us if she didn’t care,” said 14-year-old Rachel during her exit interview. “She showed me she cares enough to send me here.”

That revelation, coupled with new coping skills, will serve Rachel well in the weeks, months and years after she leaves Venture Academy; a place that helped give her back her life and her relationship with her mom.

“We’re learning to communicate in a good way rather than battling it out and I’m going to listen to her more and be more open to some of the things she has to say,” she said. “I’ve realized how stupid it was to try to escape into drinking and drugs. It only made everything worse.”

Rachel’s problems began the day she found out her father was dying of cancer. Within months, he died and she moved in with a mother she hadn’t lived with since her parent’s divorce many years before.

“My mom had her own life and I had mine with my dad but when he passed away I had to move in with her and it was really hard because she had different rules and different boundaries,” she remembers. “We were arguing a lot, just not agreeing on anything.”

Rachel abandoned her friends and hung out with kids who supported her decision to drink and do drugs. Thoughts of returning to sports – on hold since here dad became ill – quickly evaporated.

“There’s no way I could figure skate or play volleyball when I doing drugs and drinking,” she says.

Eventually Rachel’s mom called Venture Academy and got the help their family so desperately needed.

“I realize it’s not always going to be a perfect road and that there may be times when I don’t get along with my mom or when I can’t cope, but I’m going to work at it and I won’t turn back to drugs and alcohol.”

About Venture Academy: Venture Academy for Troubled Teens is a residential treatment program that serves as an alternative to boot camps for teens.

Residential Treatment Program for Troubled Teens Expands Into Ontario

Venture Academy for Troubled Teens has expanded into Ontario where it has opened a second residential treatment program for teens struggling with problems ranging from drug and alcohol abuse to low self-esteem, suicidal thoughts, and criminal behaviour.

The new academy, which provides an alternative to boot camp for troubled teens in Canada, is located one hour north of Toronto on a beautiful seven-acre site surrounded by more than 1,000 acres of forest. Like the Kelowna academy, opened in 2001, it provides teens with intensive individualized care from a highly skilled team that includes psychologists, counsellors, behavioural specialists, educators, and health professionals.

Executive Director Gordon Hay says the demand for residential treatment in Ontario like the kind Venture Academy provides was something he could no longer ignore.

“Our Kelowna location was convenient for the families of troubled teens from Western Canada but we kept getting calls from parents in Ontario who couldn’t get the help they needed but were reluctant to send their child so far away,” Hay said.

“We had some days when every inquiry we’d get would be from Ontario so it is exciting to finally be able to provide a treatment program for troubled teens in Ontario.”

Venture Academy for Troubled Teens provides a 30-day assessment program, a longer-term treatment program, as well as a summer semester. It is not a boot camp for struggling teens or a wilderness adventure program.

Each teen receives a thorough psychological assessment to identify underlying issues that may be contributing to the teen’s destructive behaviour and is provided with an individualized treatment plan.

“We’ve had parents say finally someone “gets” my kid and is doing something to help,” Hay says. “Parents want their teen's destructive behaviour to stop but they also want to know why their child is acting the way they are. Psychological testing is just one of the tools we use to provide parents with those answers.”

Hay has more than 23 years experience working with high-risk teens and their families including nine years he spent opening his own home to troubled teens. Details on both academies are available online at www.ventureacademy.ca.