My Nonprofit Reviews

Our 14-year old son just returned from an 18-month stay at the Intermountain residential program in Helena. The experience was transformative for our son and our family. We are grateful that this unique program exists and that our son and our family were willing and able to participate in the program. Through the Intermountain program, our son has developed a dramatically improved ability to regulate his emotions, to navigate social situations constructively and to make positive/safe behavioral choices. He is back home and on a completely different path. Our son was nurtured, cared for and grew tremendously through the experience.

After coming to the difficult realization that our son required residential treatment, we explored all available local programs in the San Francisco Bay Area and also investigated residential programs across the country. Intermountain stood out to us as the clear choice for our son. Several schools had comparable therapeutic, behavioral and academic resources, but we felt that Intermountain had a sense of "heart" at the core of the program. The program takes a relational approach which focuses using and developing positive relationships as the foundation of the program. I have often described it to friends as a "loving" atmosphere. It was the ONLY residential program that we visited that felt like a home environment instead of an institution.

The program expects a lot from the kids (and from their families) and also offers abundant affirmation, support and tools to help kids and families navigate the very large and very real problems they face. It's not a party, a camp or a vacation. It's a 24x7 therapeutic/behavioral program designed to help kids understand their behavior and its consequences on themselves and others. The goal is to shift behavior, emotion, thinking, patterns, habits into more constructive and appropriate outlets. Parents are expected to participate actively and need to consider how their own behavior and attitudes have contributed to the dysfunctional family dynamic.

In our experience, the program works remarkably well. Our son developed strong relationships with cottage staff, his teacher, his therapist, classmates and many others on campus. The staff is well trained, supported and "get" challenging kids in a way few places do. Instead of treating challenging kids as "bad," they understand that our kids need help developing the more constructive tools to handle the emotional, social and behavior challenges they face. Intermountain was the first time we felt confident that our son's needs wouldn't overwhelm the resources of a program. Throughout our son's life, we have dealt with dozens of neurologists, therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, behaviorists, OTs, PTs, aides, teachers, etc. and found the staff at Intermountain to be remarkable and consistently among the warmest, most dedicated, most insightful that we have encountered.

Over the 1.5 years of our son's treatment, we visited Intermountain each month and spent many hours and days on campus and in the cottage. We also attended many off campus activities and events, including a 5-day boys summer camping trip where I was the only parent in attendance. During that time, we never witnessed anything even remotely resembling the problems described by a few on this website. We have no affiliation with the school in any way and if we saw anything resembling abuse or inappropriate behavior, we would be the first and the most vocal in addressing those problems. Because the allegations are serious (and so different from our own experience), I want to respond in detail to several of the concerns. I have great empathy for any parent who has had to make the painful decision to place their child in a residential treatment program and want to respect their opinion. However, since the criticism bears no resemblance to our own experience and makes claims that are factually untrue, I want to share our experience so other parents have full information when evaluating comments on this website and deciding whether the Intermountain program is right for their child and family.

Holdings -- Intermountain does use physical holdings as a tool of last resort to prevent disregulated children from hurting themselves or others. It is not therapy -- it is a tool to avoid physically unsafe behavior. We witnessed holdings in the cottage and at school on several occasions, in each case triggered by a child hitting or threatening impending violence. Witnessing a holding is an unpleasant and emotionally challenging experience. In our experience, staff remained calm, spoke softly to the child being held and each holding ended with the child becoming re-regulated. If you are not comfortable with your child being held (or if you are a self-identified "anti-holding activist" as is the case for one of the negative postings), do not enroll them at Intermountain. I hate holdings and felt awful each time our son was held; however, compassionate holdings done as a last resort seemed like the least worst of the alternatives. If holdings are ruled out, instead would he be drugged, tranquilized, isolated, tied down or turned over to the criminal justice system after he hit or harmed another? These aren't easy issues to decide as a parent, but we felt that holdings were a better tool than the available alternatives.

Medications -- Intermountain takes a therapeutic/relational approach to treatment. Based on our son's therapeutic progress, Intermountain recommended and we agreed to eliminate a few of his medications and reduce the dosage of others. In our experience, medications were an adjunct to the therapeutic program and Intermountain was less medication oriented than other programs we have experienced.

Monitoring -- The Intermountain program takes an integrated approach to therapeutic care and works hard to share/communicate information across teams from school, the cottage and home. The belief is that kids do better when everyone involved in their care has current information about what's happening with them across their day/week. Events and discussions from school can influence behavior in the cottage or vice versa. Likewise, family calls can trigger/influence a child's behavior. Staff did participate in our family calls and sometimes offered suggestions. This was not a surprise or a concern to us, and in fact it was often helpful to have staff participate. In our calls, staff might redirect our son or prompt him to reconsider his behavior/thinking, but it never felt like oversight or we never experienced any effort to censor or limit what our son discussed with us. There were a few occasions where our family call was cancelled at the last minute because our son was struggling or not in a constructive space to talk. Those calls were rescheduled if we wanted. In our experience, we were always free to talk to our son about anything at any time, and no one ever suggested otherwise. Visitors on campus sometimes are not allowed to interact with children (other than your own child), which is perfectly appropriate in my mind. We sent our child to Intermountain to be treated by professionals, not engaged by strangers or other parents who happen to be on campus.

Food -- We had lunch or dinner in the cottage 40-50 times and ate the school cafeteria dozens of times. In our experience, meals were well rounded, balanced and bountiful. Kids served themselves, had seconds if they wanted and lots of food was left over. The school cafeteria serves a hot lunch on school days, usually some meat served with a starch and vegetables. Kids also have access to a salad bar that includes fresh fruit and kids have free access to milk, juice and water. The cottages prepare breakfast/dinner and lunch on weekends. Breakfast might be french toast casserole, pancakes or eggs. Dinner was usually a meat served with starch and veggies. If a child didn't like the main meal, they could prepare a sandwich or other food. I wouldn't call it gourmet dinning, but no child came anywhere close to going hungry. We never heard of or saw access to food being using a therapeutic tool, reward or punishment.

Chapel -- As part of the Intermountain intake process, families identify the religious/spiritual traditions relevant to their child and are asked to provide direction about their child's religious education. Our son attended "chapel" once a week in the school's multi-purpose room. We attended chapel twice during visits and also met with the chaplain 2-3 times to discuss our son's spiritual education. Both times we attended chapel, the group leaders (one Christian and one Jewish) read bible stories and then the kids played games loosely related to the stories. Religious education was not a key factor for us in selecting Intermountain and our primary concern was to ensure that our son wasn't being told that there was one "right" way to worship. Our son enjoyed the program and it felt inclusive and compassionate to us.

Staff -- In our experience, Intermountain staff are a remarkable collection of kind, compassionate, caring and well trained individuals. From the beginning, we were struck by the love and care that they bring to their interaction with the kids. One critical post on this website states that "many of the people they hire are white trash and don't even like kids." This kind of attempted character assassination speaks volumes about the judgment, values and temperament of the person writing the post and says nothing about the qualifications or capabilities of the Intermountain staff (not to mention the inherent race- and class-bias of such a statement). Our observations and experience were the exact opposite.

Making the decision to send our son to residential treatment was incredibly difficult, but the Intermountain program has given our son the tools to understand himself, his feelings and his behavior. He is happier, more centered and more socially engaged than ever. We are so grateful for Intermountain and the positive changes it has brought to our son and our family.

I just asked our son what he would want to say to parents of kids who are thinking about sending their child to Intermountain. He said that staff are very kind and help keep you safe when you are struggling. He said that kids have fun at Intermountain and get to be kids, even though they also have to do hard treatment work. He said that Intermountain is a good place for kids who are struggling.

Bruce