What we do

Crossings offers young men and women ages 13 -18 years, the opportunity to participate in a 6 week wilderness expedition in Alaska. Each group, comprised of 6-12 individuals, completes a canoe and mountaineering expedition. These trips are the backdrop for a program of intense personal development. We provide the opportunity for youth to uncover and develop constructive personal competencies and team skills on their way to fulfilling graduation requirements of the program.

For more information regarding the Crossings Wilderness Expeditions Program, please contact (907) 874-2371.

Why Wilderness Programs

Participating in the Crossings program allows young people to enhance their repertoire of successful and constructive behaviors. The wilderness provides a new context for participants where the distractions and influences of their daily lives are left behind and new skills and strengths are revealed through new challenges. Teens must work as a team to complete both the expedition goals and the smaller everyday chores that are important for successful community living. In addition, daily group debriefs and overall supervision by Masters Level Counselors ensures maximum support for each participant as they work through personal hardship, self exploration and build self-esteem (character).

Living in the wilderness means getting back to basics. The seemingly simple tasks of finding shelter, keeping dry and cooking meals are suddenly of extreme importance. Nature can provide immediate and undisputable consequences both good and bad for decisions made when working in a group and during scheduled solo activities.

Who Can Benefit?

Crossings Wilderness Expeditions are designed to benefit young people who may be:

• abusing alcohol or drugs
• beyond parental control
• low in self-esteem
• rebellious, angry, defiant
• failing in school grades and attendance
• suspended or expelled from school
• depressed or emotionally troubled
• running away
• choosing the wrong friends

Why Crossings Wilderness Expeditions?

• Experienced and mature staff.
• Team approach to working with your child includes overall clinical supervision from one of our Master Level Counselors.
• Our remote wilderness settings minimize runaways, physically challenge clients, build self reliance.
• Flexible individualized treatment planning.
• More instruction provided than other wilderness treatment programs, most residential programs, and, many hospitals.
• We use the wilderness to increase self-reliance and self-esteem, and to actively disrupt negative peer influence.
• Many health insurance plans may pay part of the cost of this program because of its therapeutic emphasis.
• We offer insightful assessment, excellent intensive short-term treatment, and preparation for further treatment and schooling. Wrangell Community Services is a recognized Community Mental Health Center by the State of Alaska and as such we are an authorized Medicaid provider. We can assist you in working with your provider.

Welcome

The information contained in this web site is designed to introduce you to the Crossings Wilderness Expeditions for Youth (CWEY) program offered by Wrangell Community Services.

Teenage years can be confusing and troubling times. Our innovative approach to working with young men and women is only one link in a process designed to help build and repair bridges that span the teenage years. The wilderness tripping component provides the context for an intense program of personal exploration and development. The journey that these young people take is not about the miles made paddling a canoe or climbing a mountain, it is about the progress that is made toward becoming a self confident well adjusted young adult.

Crossings is about people and the potential that we all carry within us. By working together with community based professionals, we not only provide an exciting "turn around" wilderness program, but also, ensure treatment objectives follow the youth home to their family community and referring agencies.

We look forward to meeting you and encourage all who undertake this program to relish the journey for they may never cross this way again.

Why Wilderness Programming?

Participating in the Crossings program allows young people to enhance their repertoire of successful and constructive behaviors. The wilderness provides a new context for participants as the distractions, luxuries, and influences of their daily lives are left behind and new skills and strengths are revealed through the challenges inherent with backcountry travel. Teens must work as a team to complete both the expedition goals and the smaller everyday chores that are important for successful community living. In addition, daily group debriefs by behavior technicians, and overall supervision by Masters Level Counselors ensures maximum support for each participant as they work through personal hardship, self exploration and ultimately, build self-esteem and character.

Nothing comes easy or by itself in the wilderness. The seemingly simple tasks of finding shelter, keeping dry and cooking meals are suddenly of extreme importance. It is our belief that until young people experience the negative consequences of their choices, they won't acknowledge their behavior as a problem. Nature’s consequences hold young people accountable for the good and bad choices they make in a more immediate and indisputable way than adults can. This ultimately helps them rediscover the values that are important to leading successful lives: family, responsibility, honesty, trust, and respect.

Wilderness living provides a natural healing environment. It provides the physical activity and healthy conditions that are especially important to adolescents and is the best available means to promote self-exploration and self esteem. This occurs in a setting where one naturally explores the meaning of solitude, daily work, play, and relationships. We believe that in order to affect change one must witness first hand the desired behavior. Through daily group challenges and debriefs we will establish true relationships with the students which will be the foundation for the program.

Let’s face it, who wouldn't benefit from completing a great wilderness trip in Alaska with outstanding staff and support. Below is a list of some of the issues that participants present with when entering the program.

• running away
• choosing the wrong friends
• bright but not
• suffering from Attention-Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder
• FAS/FAE issues
• impulsive or hyperactive
• struggling with attachment disorders
• recovering from sexual, emotional, or physical abuse
• having problems with anxiety
• abusing alcohol or drugs
• beyond parental control
• low in self-esteem
• rebellious, angry, defiant
• failing in school grades and attendance
• suspended or expelled from school
• depressed or emotionally troubled

Due to the outdoor nature of this program, with the limitations the setting imposes in terms of size of group and number of staff, physical hardships, and lack of access to treatment facilities, some kinds of problems are inappropriate for the expeditions. These include adolescents with:

• Histories of or substantial potential for serious suicide attempts.
• Histories of significant interpersonal violence or sociopathic personality disorders.
• Psychotic breakdown or a substantial likelihood, based on history and personality that such breakdown could occur in the course of the trek.
• Such severe addictions that they need to go through a detoxification process.
• Physical conditions or diseases limiting their ability to safely hike up to 10 miles a day over rough terrain carrying a 35 or 40 pound pack, or to endure extended outdoor living in cold, wet, or hot weather.
• Physical conditions or diseases requiring ongoing nursing care or medical supervision, or histories indicating a substantial possibility that medical treatment and supervision might become necessary during a 28 day period of intense exercise and exposure to natural weather conditions.

Where such problems may exist but are not clearly and obviously prohibitive of participation, CWEY is willing to discuss individual cases with its clinical and professional staff. We need parent cooperation in getting these application materials carefully completed with full disclosure and in our hands as soon as possible in order to make sound eligibility decisions.

The Crossings program does not discriminate in accepting participants for basis of race, color, creed, ethnicity, or national origin.

Advantages of Using Crossings

CWEY is located in Wrangell Alaska. With concerns growing about the number of children being sent out of state for services, it is comforting for families to know that there is an option for their child to remain in state. Our program was developed to address the specific needs of Alaskan families and we pride ourselves in being able to provide services to remote rural families.

Because of the program’s therapeutic emphasis and Wrangell Community Services recognition as a State of Alaska qualified Community Mental Health Center, many health insurance plans, including Medicaid, will pay part or all of the cost of this program.

CWEY has a very high field staff to participant ratio. Groups run at a maximum ratio of 1 staff for every 3 participants. High risk activities (either emotional or physical) are run at a 1-2 ratio. This far exceeds the industry standard where you can find field ratios as high as 1-5.

The average age of CWEY staff is 34. All guides are professionals who have dedicated themselves to the field of wilderness rehabilitation services. Staff members are trained in advanced wilderness first aid, river and lake canoe instructor level certification, Wilderness Emergency Response, river rescue, addiction treatment training, youth instruction, crisis management training and sexual abuse training.

We attract the very best in the field. This is in part due to the exciting work environment that we operate in, that being Alaska, but also because we provide remuneration and benefits that reflects our staffs high skill level and unique talents. We want staff that has a large portfolio of life skills to draw from.

CWEY provides more therapy and psycho-education than other wilderness programs; however, we still maintain a culture of joy, wonder, play and fun. We believe it's all right to have fun while exploring inner regions in the outer world.

Our instruction Approach

The Crossings program is designed to fill the gap in the range of available treatment between weekly instruction sessions and long-term residential or inpatient treatment programs. The program works well as a complement to an outpatient program or as preparation for long-term residential care.

Our goal is to help adolescents work through their resistance to accepting the need for continued treatment and to give them a boost toward maturity.

instruction concentrates on current issues: resolving conflicts, discussing strong feelings, processing solutions (as issues come up), helping young people to see their own and others' behavior objectively, gaining a sense of control over their behavior, and finding sources of self-confidence. We also apply the lessons of current experience to life "back home," sharing and working to resolve the frustrations, fears, angers, and perceived inadequacies that have led to their problems.

Program Results

Crossings Wilderness Expeditions is a "turn-around" type of program, designed to radically change the attitudes and self esteem of participants. Virtually all of our participants will return home or go on to other programs much less angry, frustrated, and blaming of adults; openly caring about their families; and ready, with help from their families, to work out responsible, successful approaches to their problems.

Our expectations for graduates are to:

• Stop denying they have problems
• Be a positive active member of their family
• Comply with family rules regarding such things as curfew and friends
• Attend school regularly and work at their level of ability
• Quit any existing drug abuse and accept the help they need to stay clean and sober
• Accept responsibility for their own behavior and work to achieve their life goals
• Seek out a positive mentor in their community

After Care and Family Involvement

We usually recommend at least a year of aftercare following our program. This ranges from weekly family therapy, family support to long-term participational care. Aftercare planning begins at intake. Our intake coordinator will gather community resources for each student and the student's family.

Without the support of referring agencies, our program has no impact after the child returns home. It is critically important that we maintain active communication with your agency while the child is in our care, and after they return home. To ensure that this takes place a Crossings Social Worker phones you with weekly updates and ensures that aftercare resources are being arranged in concert with you. After the program you can have access to all daily reports and a trip summary and full exit report with recommendations for future care and follow-up issues being the focus. It is a privilege to be able to work with you and your client and we take this responsibility very seriously.

In addition, Crossings is in the developing stages of an innovative online aftercare. Program graduates will be able to access Crossings Social Workers live, once a week during online chats. Weekly supervised group chats will allow former participants to keep in touch and support each other. There will also be information to help graduates access services, develop resumes, and more. This will be a dynamic and engaging website and we are very excited to add this service for our participants.

A Word About Risk

Risk is inherent in any physically strenuous activity, and this can be compounded in wilderness settings because medical help is not readily available. Risk is also increased for young people whose anger, self-abuse, depression, or addiction interferes with their ability to make good judgments with regard to self care and consequence. However, outdoor programs, in general, have better injury records than those of many high school sports and responsible wilderness treatment programs even have a somewhat lower injury rate than outdoor adventure camps.

CWEY takes many steps to control risk as much as possible. In 2002 we completed a full risk management assessment with the Adventure Incorporated. This assessment involved both a review of our systems and an onsite visit that was over a one week period where the evaluator went into the field with our staff to observe our safety systems and protocols. We had a very favorable report from this respected company. The evaluator noted that, "the Crossings staff are one of the most professional and well trained that I have ever evaluated". We will be glad to discuss our risk management and safety systems to help you come to an informed, careful decision about sending your client on a Crossings Expedition.

It is also vitally important to recognize the critical role risk plays in the success of wilderness treatment programs. Activities that are high in "perceived risk" by participants, but are low in ‘actual risk’ make it easy to accomplish new skills and overcome fear. When someone succeeds at a new skill and conquers fear and doubt, confidence and self trust are not far behind.

Participants Rights and Responsibilities

We support open lines of communication with all involved parties so it is important to us that families registering an adolescent for a Crossings Wilderness Expedition fully understand the nature of the treatment. This information is provided to all parents, related agencies, and/or care givers via mail or fax (as requested) prior to registering an adolescent for the program. Also provided are the adolescent rights and responsibilities, program rules, and discipline. These are provided in detail and in keeping with certification requirements of the Alaska State Office of Mental Health Services.