Mission Mountain School

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Mission Mountain School is a therapeutic boarding school for girls located in Condon, Montana (Missoula County).

The school is fully accredited for educational purposes as a college-preparatory boarding school for girls in grades 9-12 and is a member of the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs. The school advertises that its students are bright, verbally highly skilled, and above average in intelligence, but are not performing to true potential or are engaging in behaviors that endanger the realization of that potential. The curriculum is advertised as designed to address depression, addictive illnesses, post-traumatic stress, attachment/bonding issues, grief and loss, ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder, and difficulties at home and at school.

Mission Mountain School claims to integrate personal and community daily life skills, outdoor education, therapy, and academic curricula that is rigorous, progressive, student-centered, and developmentally-based to equip our students on their personal quest for identity, explaining that they view the crisis that often precedes and accompanies this process of growth as the catalyst for the greatest adventure in life--the empowering adventure of finding one's true self.

This school, however, like many unregulated facilities in the US and those run by US citizens abroad, is not without controversy. Mental health researchers, coupled with former alumni, mental health advocates, concerned parents and policy experts have expressed concern through the media of personal accounts of mistreatment and the widespread use of therapeutic methods that have largely been debunked, use of psysiological stressors to induce change, poor quality education, lack of medical attention given youths, hiring of unqualified staff and violation of constitutional and human rights of youth. In October of 2005 they took their concerns to Capitol Hill and held press briefing in Washington DC in support of federal legislation that would help ensure oversight and prevent mistreatment.

[edit] References

"Exploitation in the Name of 'Specialty Schooling' by Allison Pinto, Ph. D., Robert M. Friedman, Ph. D. and Monica Epstein, Ph. D., Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute, University of South Florida, American Psychological Association: Children, Youth and Families News, Summer 2005, retrieved June 28, 2006