Back in 2017, I collaborated with Mona Treadway, Ph.D., MSW, then the co-founder of Dragonfly Transitions, one of the earliest young-adult transitional programs in the country, to talk through what families actually need to understand about this level of care. Mona has since retired, and Dragonfly has closed, but her insights have held up remarkably well. I am revisiting them here, nine years later, and on the other side of a global pandemic that reshaped everything about how young adults struggle and how programs support them. The questions parents ask have not changed. The field has.
A Field That Grew Up Fast
When Mona started Dragonfly Transitions in 2000, there were almost no programs specifically designed for young adults stepping out of wilderness therapy, hospital assessment programs, or residential treatment. She and a handful of others were building the model in real time.
As she explained it:
"We began working with more and more young adults in the wilderness who needed broader life-skills support as they left the wilderness therapy program. At the time, there were very few young adult programs that 'allowed' young adults direct access to a typical town. To be honest, we truly started the transition model with one student as a favor to his family. It's been an organic evolution ever since — always examining what works, what doesn't, and what needs to be added."
That organic evolution became a field. By the time I spoke with Mona in 2017, the Young Adult Transition Association (YATA) had grown from 6 member programs to 19+. Today, there are far more options, which is both good news and a genuine source of overwhelm for families trying to find the right fit.
Why So Many Young Adults Need Support Now
Even in 2017, the forces driving demand for young adult programs were clear. The pandemic accelerated all of them.
Danny Conroy, founder of now-closed AIM House in Boulder, CO, put it plainly:
"I think that we are seeing a society in general that's less connected to one another with the onset of technology, smartphones, and social media. In general, we are facilitating an era of virtual connection. There is no substitute for authentic connection with another human being."
But what the research is now telling us is that COVID accelerated something already underway. Jonathan Haidt's The Anxious Generation (2024) traces the real inflection point to around 2012, when smartphones and social media began colonizing adolescent life, and the move of screens into classrooms has not helped. A 2025 report from the Center for Democracy and Technology found that half of students feel less connected to their teachers as a result of AI use in class, and nearly half of teachers and parents worry about declining peer-to-peer connection. The young adults arriving at programs today didn't become isolated in March 2020 — that was just the moment it became impossible to ignore. edweek
The former Clinical Director from Cascade Crest Transitions, Sean Roberts, Ph.D., was seeing this trend in 2017 and offered a framing that has only become more relevant:
"My sense is that the increased need for young adult programs is less about an increase in pathology but more about young adults not having the coping skills, resiliency, or emotional intelligence to cope with the greater environmental, social, and interpersonal demands that come with young adulthood."
That distinction matters for parents. Your young adult (child) may not need the most clinical setting available. They may need a structured environment where they can build the very skills, emotional regulation, self-direction, and real-world problem-solving that they have not had a chance to develop.
The Four Models: What They Are and Who They Are For
One of the most useful things Mona gave me was a framework for understanding the range of young adult programs. These four models still hold up as a way to orient yourself, and today there are strong real-world examples of each.
1. Onsite Therapy / Residential
The most structured option. Therapy is provided by the program itself, students live on-site in a community setting, and independence is earned in stages. This is the right fit for young adults who are clinically complex or who need a higher level of containment and support before they're ready to navigate the real world.
Engage Young Adult Transitions in Cedar City, Utah, is a strong example of this model, thoughtfully implemented. Their approach is built around attachment theory — the idea that healing happens through safe, consistent relationships — with therapist-directed life coaches, integrated psychiatry, and a small therapeutic milieu designed to create genuine connection. Students live in apartments just steps from Southern Utah University and engage in 30+ hours of structured activities each week while receiving robust clinical care. What I appreciate about Engage is how they hold the balance: as they put it, "clinically sophisticated support, while honoring your freedom and autonomy."
2. Outpatient Model / College Support
More academically focused, often with a local therapist and life coaches or mentors as primary support. A good fit for young adults who are functioning reasonably well but need scaffolding around academics, executive function, and the social demands of college.
Cascade Crest Transitions in Bend, Oregon, sits squarely here, and they have built something genuinely unusual in this space: a program that's strong both academically and clinically. Each student is assigned an Academic Advisor as a core member of their treatment team. Students access Central Oregon Community College or OSU Cascades while moving through a phased program — Belay, Ascent, Summit — that gradually releases structure as independence builds. The outdoor setting in Bend isn't incidental; rock climbing, skiing, and adventure are part of the therapeutic model.
Gemba Boise in Boise, Idaho, offers a lighter-touch version of this model that I find particularly compelling for young adults who are neurodivergent or on the autism spectrum. Rather than a clinical program, Gemba is a guided launch — assessing each young adult's personality, values, motivators, and passions, then building a customized path that might include Boise State coursework, internships, or part-time work. It's less about treatment and more about helping a young adult find direction in a supportive, non-familial environment.
3. Outpatient Therapy / Independent Housing
Students typically live in their own apartments; coaching and therapy are provided through the program's office. This model suits young adults who have already done significant therapeutic work and are ready for more independence, but still benefit from regular professional check-ins.
Skyline Recovery in Bend, Oregon, serves young adult men who have completed primary treatment or wilderness therapy, have an established sobriety foundation, and are ready for the next step. Their model pairs trauma-informed clinical work with comprehensive life skills and a strong peer recovery community — with the explicit goal of transitioning clients back into school, employment, and values-driven independent living. Bend's tight-knit recovery community is part of what makes it work. Young men aren't just in a program; they're embedded in a place.
4. Apartment Living with Mentors
Focused on vocational training, education, and life skills in a safe, non-familial community. As Mona described it, this option is for young adults who "may have few behaviors or a clinical diagnosis and need a place to grow into adulthood, outside of their home." Think supported launching rather than treatment.
Pivot Transitional Living in Tucson, Arizona, exemplifies this model for young men in recovery. Built around 12-step immersion, peer connection, and life skills development, Pivot's 3-acre campus near the University of Arizona offers residents a community of peers, full-time licensed therapists, and a structured aftercare program that covers everything from money management and job readiness to weekend adventures. The emphasis is on making sober life genuinely attractive — and on building the kind of brotherhood that sustains recovery long after the program ends.
What Young Adults Say Actually Helps
Mona's doctoral research asked young adults themselves what supported their growth. The answer was not a particular therapy modality or program structure. It came down to three things:
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Interpersonal Relationships — feeling genuinely connected to staff, peers, and mentors
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Community and Culture — belonging to something larger than themselves
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Experiential Education — learning through doing, not just talking about it
I think about this every time I visit at a treatment or transition program. Look at the examples above through that lens, and the pattern holds. Engage's attachment-driven model is built explicitly around relationships. Cascade Crest and Skyline plant young adults in Bend's outdoor community. Pivot's "brotherhood" framing is all about culture. And Gemba's whole premise is that purpose is discovered through doing, like internships, jobs, and real-world exploration, not through another round of therapy alone.
When you're evaluating a program, ask not just what it offers on paper but how it actually creates connections. What does community look like day-to-day? What do students do together? How do they build real skills in the real world?
What Good Programs Have in Common
Whether a program is highly clinical or mentor-focused, the best ones tend to integrate most of the following:
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Licensed therapy (individual, group, family)
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Mentoring and a supportive staff milieu
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Life-skills education (finances, cooking, independent living)
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Vocational or academic support
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Health, wellness, and recreation
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Medication management when needed
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Parent education and family systems work
That last one is easy to overlook when you're focused on your child. But the most effective programs work with the whole family — helping parents understand their role in the therapeutic process and how to support (rather than inadvertently undermine) their child's growth. Mona said it clearly in 2017, and it is still true now.
How to Use This as a Starting Point
The young adult treatment field is bigger, more varied, and more sophisticated than it was when Mona and I first sat down in 2017. Insurance options are vast. Transitional living programs have adapted to address the specific challenges young adults face post-pandemic, like telehealth, hybrid support models, and trauma-informed approaches to COVID-era developmental disruption are all part of the conversation now. What struck me, revisiting this interview, is how clearly this field has always seen what is happening. Long before the news was covering the mental health crisis with young people, these programs were living it.
What hasn't changed: finding the right fit still requires asking good questions, understanding the range of options, and matching the level of support to your child's actual needs — not your anxiety level, and not the most intensive option you can find.
To go even deeper on the distinctions between program types, I would also recommend reading 6 Varieties of Young Adult Treatment. It breaks down the options with questions families can bring directly into their search.
If you are not sure where to start, explore young adult transitional living options on the site or residential treatment, or connect with an expert whose job it is to identify options and walk your family through the process.
About the Authors
This post draws on a 2017 interview with Mona Treadway, Ph.D.,MSW, co-founder of Dragonfly Transitions (now closed). Mona has since retired. Her insights and research findings are presented here because they remain among the clearest articulations of how this field works and what young adults actually need.
Jenney Wilder, M.S.Ed., founded All Kinds of Therapy in 2015, closing her therapeutic educational consulting practice to build an unbiased resource families could actually trust. With an early career in Silicon Valley during the Web 1.0 era and a wonderfully diagnosed case of ADHD fueling her determination, she understood that the internet is the first place parents turn in crisis, and she was determined to build something worthy of that moment. Over the course of her career, she has personally visited more than 500 schools and treatment providers across all levels of care throughout North America. All Kinds of Therapy features transparent mental health, dual-diagnosis, and therapeutic programs and Expert professionals across all levels of care, free to parents and young adults, because finding the right treatment or transition program starts with asking the right questions and getting direct answers. A co-founder of the Therapeutic Consulting Association (TCA), she is also the lead author of the only collaborative economic impact study on adolescent and young adult treatment programs in Utah. She holds a Master's degree in Special Education from Bank Street College of Education (NY) and a B.A. from Wheaton College (MA).