High School

Treatment + Education

Our director Anne Bush Ambrose was honored by the publication of her article on educational philosophy in the March 2004 issue of Addiction Professional .

The Intersection of Treatment and Education for the Young Addict

 

Education is generally considered the best means of fulfilling potential. In treating the addict, however, education is not the first priority. The academic program is subservient to the goals of treatment and to the therapeutic process that meets these goals. When academic demands conflict with the demands of treatment, treatment prevails. If it weren't that way, students would not be successful long term-in school or in life.

Young clients often come in saying, "I hate school and I'm never going to school again."

"How much do you lack to graduate," you ask.

"Two courses," they might say.

Don't argue with them. Just listen and wait. When light breaks through clouds of darkness, the transcendent moment is usually set up by the application of therapeutic principles.

 

School is a choice and a privilege.

A major component of therapy should be that each client participates in his own treatment plan. Guide a new client, after detox and a few weeks of primary care, to examine his life and set goals, including getting a job or going to school. If he doesn't have a high school diploma, getting one is a strong option. The power to choose must be his.

Even the most talented young addict has probably had a bad experience with school. He has probably been forced to go and required to follow certain procedures, so his attitude towards school is often poor. Do not contribute to that attitude by making him do something he doesn't want to do.

At Metropolitan Serenity House, a residential program for adolescents and young men, where I am executive director, we support clients in choosing productive activities: a job, volunteer work, school or some combination. They usually choose a job first, but after a few weeks of the kind of work an uneducated addict can usually get and plenty of occasions to observe their peers who are in our school, they usually decide they'll try school.

 

Respect clients' abilities .

We suggest our high school dropouts aim high and get a diploma from an accredited school. Not only will the diploma be a better credential than a GED or nothing, earning the diploma will fill in the gaps in experience that the disruption of drug use has caused. Encouraging work towards a diploma also shows respect for a young person's abilities and character, respect that he may not have enjoyed for a long time.

All this presupposes the availability of an accredited high school, perhaps a special needs high school as part of a treatment facility. Classes designed for recovering drug addicts may be accepted for credit leading to a diploma at the high school where the student has earned some previous credit. Sending the dropout back to his old high school is inadvisable. It didn't work before and it won't work now. He must have uniquely designed educational programs.

 

Any option must include an individualized plan .

Once a client chooses to try an academic program as a part of the recovery process, look at his transcript, compare it with the curriculum requirements of the state, and see what courses he needs to graduate. Get the syllabus for each course he needs and, if this is unavailable, design a challenging course.

Be creative about ways a student can fulfill requirements. Give him significant input into deciding what will work for him. Come to an agreement together-and write it down--about what you and he will do as a team to allow him to reach his academic goals. Most parents respond to their son's drug use with controlling behavior. Control is one of the things the addict has been avoiding by using drugs. It's hard for him to believe someone in authority is on his team. Give him that experience, and teach him to recognize it.

Students in a special needs school do their course work at their own pace. Completion of individualized course work often takes less time than at a regular school because it has more concentrated study periods and the advantage of access to an exceptional educator. There is time for therapeutic options such as education on addictive disease and working the twelve steps of recovery.

Any treatment center will get bright students and not so bright students, most with learning differences (formerly called learning disabilities and attention deficit disorder). Sometimes giving them structure and respect in the context of sobriety is enough. Motivated students will succeed in school.

While an individualized program adapts to different abilities and learning styles, there are some young people without diplomas who should not engage in an academic program at any level. These few are too learning disabled or emotionally unstable to deal with academic demands; in school they risk their sobriety. In fact, the unrealistic demands of school may have been part of the complex situation that led these young addicts to drug use. School won't work for them. Do not be a party to their going back. Instead work to their strengths, discover their gifts, and help them find a passion in meaningful work.

The exceptionally bright addict-and quite a few addicts are bright-is more difficult to set on a path of guided accomplishment. They are more eager to show us they don't need us. Teachers have credentials so that very bright students think maybe we have something of value to offer, but they are always testing us. They often have an attitude that says, "You don't know as much as I do" or "I'll show you ." Give them what they want. Let them show you! I sometimes say, "I've spent a little time with you and I can see already that you're smarter than I am, but I will do the best I can." Then they don't have to compete with me. Give them the power! Sometimes they ask you a question for which they don't think you'll know the answer. If you know it, tell them quick. If you don't know the answer, you say you don't, adding, "Let's go find out." They need to know where to find information more than they need to know all the subject matter. Addicts are not used to people saying, "I don't know." Your admission engages them.

 

 

Fill the emotional gaps.

An academic program should be designed to fill the gaps in the client's development. Some of the gaps are purely academic ones; others are emotional ones. The students' development has been interrupted at some point, but, if they are young, it may have been only five or six years since things went bad for them, maybe in middle school. With the help of the treatment team, you figure out what emotional experiences the students have missed in school and you give it to them. For example, many of these young men have missed the field trips because of their behavior. Being left behind leaves a wound. Unconsciously, the student misses being included. Taking field trips now helps heal the wound. The psyche doesn't care about time and is satisfied with the experience of being included now. Trips also allow addicts to experience having fun while sober--something else they probably have missed in recent years.

Prioritize sobriety, therapy, and school in that order.

A teacher has to be constantly aware that sobriety is the most important thing. If someone comes in late or without his work and says, "I have a problem," you work out that problem. Yes, drug addicts try to get you off task, and you need to recognize when they are manipulating you. However, if the need is real, you must remember that unresolved issues are forerunners of relapse, and that a student asking for help is doing the right thing to maintain his sobriety, which is our first order of business.

For a typical client, behavior has been a problem in his previous school experience because he has been using drugs. If behavior is a problem now that he is sober, consider that a life problem not a school problem. Turn it over to the therapist. The student may be out of school for a while until that is resolved. Because he is working at his own pace, the absence doesn't cause a problem.

Integrate therapeutic principles with educational principles. If a student says he hates this subject, you get him to talk about why and help him find a better way to reach his goal, whether it is changing his attitude, changing the plan, or finding another subject that will fulfill the same requirement. Any teaching opportunity may be a chance for a therapeutic encounter.

If a student says he wants to go to school and get a diploma, but he comes to school late and sleeps during his independent study, or is generally disrespectful of his opportunity to attend school, don't struggle with him. Remind him that behavior shows intent, and tell him you've concluded that he doesn't want to go to school, at least not now. And he doesn't have to. Send him back to the treatment team.

Once the staff of Avner Bush Academy, the accredited special-needs high school of Metropolitan Serenity House, called me to say that the two students enrolled were spending their study time sleeping. I went over and explained my philosophy to them. I told them to stay in the residence and sleep late every morning until they caught up on their rest. I said we didn't have to have a school right now, that we could save some money by letting the teachers go on leave. I told the staff at the residence not to wake the guys up and, if they got up, to tell them to go back to bed because their main goal was to get enough sleep. School must never interfere with their health and treatment goals. The students were very upset. They didn't want the school to close. They insisted school was their choice and they wanted it to resume. They begged for the teachers to come back the next day. They got out of bed early and attended to their studies after that. The trick here was not a trick at all because I meant it when I said they didn't have to go to school. Having the choice of attending school is more important therapeutically than attendance itself.

 

Sometimes students explain lack of interest in schoolwork by saying they are only doing school because their parents make them. Simply say, "We'll take that up with your parents at our next meeting." The counter productivity of trying to control their children is an issue for family therapy. You have to talk the parents into letting their sons and daughters have the experience of choosing to leave school and living with the consequences for a while. That lesson is well worth the missed time in school.

 

Honor their achievement like a traditional family does.

Something else that young addicts have usually missed in recent years is a celebration of their accomplishments. They have had plenty of grief over their failures. Now it's time to reverse the damage. Honor their achievements. Post an honor roll even if you have only one student and he has achieved in a significant way. When a student earns a diploma, hold graduation. Students at Avner Bush Academy who have completed requirements for a diploma, no matter how few in number, participate in the traditional ceremony with cap-and-gown, processional music, speeches, well wishing from faculty, family, and friends, and a feast afterwards-the whole nine yards. The young graduates are proud, the staff is proud, and the families are elated, usually moved to tears because most have given up on ever seeing this day. This day has come because we all have put therapeutic goals ahead of clients' need "to get an education."

 

Be proud of your clients' academic success; be more proud of their sobriety.

 

--Anne Bush Ambrose

Executive Director and founder of Metropolitan Serenity House in Atlanta, Georgia