Parents,
Our son had been in four different residential treatment centers over the last five years and was to graduate from High School in June of 2010 and come home. While he had made significant improvement in behavior management and repaired family relationships, his placement environments had been very structured compared to the typical unstructured/easy going life style of our family. Thus we were very concerned with him adjusting to living at home and entering a four year university in late August.
He had in the last year of his residential treatment made numerous efforts to participate in a less structured program to help lessen the transition shock of coming home. Unfortunately, he was not able to make the necessary adjustments to be successful and had to go back to the highly structured environment. Consequently, we went looking for a transition assistance program and were recommended to Homeward Bound.
Homeward Bound was able to assist the entire family during the initial transition back to family living and prepare our son for entering college. The keys to our successful experience so far has been the willingness of all four members of the family to make the transition a success and Homeward Bound’s valuable assistance in preparing the Expectation Contract on behavior boundaries and resulting consequences if the boundaries are not met. The weekly Coaching sessions with all four members of the family went a long way to ensuring that we all stayed focused on the objective of his successful transition back into the home.
I think we all very much appreciated the alternative perceptions and suggestions offered by the Transition Coach that enabled us to see the large picture and remain on track.
John Curtis
Nevada
