In a treatment setting, school is often the laboratory for practicing skills learned in therapy. One such skill—self advocacy—has both emotional and academic implications. In this blog InnerChange academic director, Kathrine Whittekiend, M.Ed., discusses the importance of self advocacy skills for student success in and out of the classroom.
The best way to structure academics in a treatment setting is to make the faculty active members of the treatment team. We have to do this in order to be effective—both as teachers and as participants in the treatment process. This means having access to and input into treatment team objectives, case management discussions, and treatment strategies. This way, when the therapist is working on an issue in treatment, we can support that work in the classroom.
Through the process of treatment we came to understand at a very deep level that we’d made the right choice. We were saving our daughter’s life, our family’s health…and maybe even our marriage. But in retrospect, we wish we’d had other parents to talk to prior to enrolling Rachel. Parents who were a few clicks further down the road who could help normalize the process and give us some assurance that we were doing the right thing.
Much to the frustration of those engaged in treatment, families are designed to resist change. Families are what scientists—and family systems therapists—call “self-regulating systems.†Since self-regulating systems prefer stability (homeostasis), the self-regulation response automatically resists change. This can be tricky during family therapy the point of which, of course, is to facilitate change!
Emergent adults are taking less of a straight line to adulthood than past generations did. They are more likely to take a semester abroad, a gap year, or to change schools once or more. Many are withdrawing from college for emotional reasons or due to adjustment difficulties.
