Provo Canyon School

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Provo Canyon School is a Behavior Modification Facility for teenagers. This school consists of two campses, one in Provo, UT and one in Orem, UT. The two campuses serve different client needs, as the Provo campus serves exclusively boys over fourteen years of age, and the Orem campus serves girls up to eighteen years of age and boys and girls as young as twelve years of age.

The Provo Canyon School was founded in 1971 at the mouth of Provo Canyon, although it is no longer under its original ownership. The original founders were Robert Crist and Jack Williams. Alternate sources may cite 1974 as the official founding year of Provo Canyon School.

Provo Canyon School concentrates mainly on rehabilitation of adolescents with personality disorders and behavioral disorders, but also accepts adolescents with drug rehabilitation needs and many other dysfunctions.

Provo Canyon School's approach to child disorders has been considered a "tough love" approach, in that adolescent patients are challenged to acknowledge self destructive behaviors and grow beyond them, even when said acknowledgement requires constant supervision and intervention.

When students arrive, they are placed in sweat clothes for orientation in order to locate potential contraband such as money or drugs. Students can then begin to earn the right to wear "normal" clothes again. This is seen as the first step to breaking down the adolescent's barriers to effective treatment. Students at the school earn more privileges as they progress with treatment, eventually being elevated to a status where they live in a hotel off-campus for the purpose of re-integrating them with society. The school claims a 90 percent success rate.