Elevations RTC is a residential treatment center for youth ages 13 to 18 in Syracuse, Utah. It is a center for both boys and girls. Elevations help students with a history of trauma, depression, anxiety, mood disorders, suicidal thoughts, or self-harm by giving them psychiatric care, specialized and intensive clinical groups, accredited academics, and experiential therapy.
Elevations was started in 2014, and it offers intensive psychiatric care, personalized care, and college-preparatory classes that are accredited. Individualized, comprehensive clinical programs include interactions with therapists, peer groups, staff groups, and recreational therapy. Different kinds of clinical groups work on different kinds of problems. Elevations also helps families by providing orientations for new parents, parent seminars, family visits, and family therapy once a week.
Elevations helps with many different mental, behavioral, or academic problems. Diagnoses can include:
History of Trauma
ADHD and learning disabilities
Depression, anxiety, and other mood problems
Not working well
Identity disorders
Use of drugs
Self-injury
Accredited teachers teach in person in classrooms that are set aside for that purpose. There are between 8 and 12 people in the class. A team teacher helps students with their schoolwork and is an important part of the treatment team. A student's advisor also works with them to make sure they do well in school. There is also learning through doing in the program.
The way Elevations RTC treats people is different in two ways. The first is that the campus has buildings that were made with a therapeutic community in mind. It is meant to make you feel safe and cared for. The center has a traditional classroom, a cafeteria, and a place to work out every day, which helps to keep things normal for the students.
The second thing that makes Elevations stand out is that it accepts students of both sexes. This normalizing experience is like what young people will find in the real world, and it gives them a chance to try out these kinds of relationships in a safe, supportive place where the staff has been trained in diversity and inclusion.
Elevations is different from many other residential treatment centers for teens because it doesn't separate boys and girls in the classroom and during therapy sessions. Instead, Elevations tries to make it easier for students of different genders to talk to each other. Students go to class, eat lunch, and do things with other students of the opposite gender. Elevations strongly believes that building skills across genders in a supportive environment are a better way to help students when they leave the program than putting them at risk of not being able to adjust to the real world.
Jacques went to Westminster College and got his master's in special education. Before she moved to residential education, she taught history in public junior high schools. Since then, her job has grown, and she is now a co-administrator of Elevations RTC.
The roughly 50-person team is made up of experienced clinicians, medical doctors, psychiatrists, teachers, recreation staff, program specialists, residential staff, and marketing and administrative staff. The role of Executive Leadership is shared by Jennifer Wilde and Judi Jacques. Wilde is a licensed clinical social worker who has worked with teens for more than 25 years. She has a certificate in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), a type of talk therapy for people with strong emotions. The University of Utah gave her a master's degree in social work.
Clinical Director is a job that both Wilde and Jennifer Maddock do. Maddock is a certified DBT therapist who is licensed to work with families and couples. She is an expert in family therapy for teens who are having trouble. She has worked with families and children in the foster care system and in public mental health.
The person in charge of medical care is Dr. Michael Connolly. He is board-certified in both general psychiatry and psychiatry for children and teens. He got his medical degree from the University of Oklahoma, did his general psychiatry residency at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, and graduated from the University of Utah's Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship.
The person in charge of academics is Ryan Mortensen. Mortensen has a bachelor's degree in psychology from Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, and a master's degree in mathematics education from the University of Phoenix. He has also passed tests in physics and money management. He has a lot of experience helping people with mental health problems and has worked at Elevations RTC since it first opened.
Eric Flores is in charge of running the program. Flores has a master's degree in psychology from Capella University in Minneapolis. She focuses on helping people improve their mental skills and understand how groups work. His philosophy is to encourage success, be yourself, and care about other people.
Recreational Director, The Recreational Director, is Erica Yaeger. Yaeger worked with adults in recovery from addiction, teens with autism, and people in crisis before she joined Elevations. In 2018, the Utah Recreation Therapy Association gave Yaeger the Most Outstanding Program award for her work at Brighton Recovery Center and her published research on positive psychology and substance use disorder. She went to school at Utah University.
Elevations is part of a program run by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security called the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System. It is also a part of the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs. Elevations RTC has gotten the Gold Seal of Approval from the Joint Commission and accreditation from Cognia, a non-profit that helps elementary and secondary schools.
