Youth who are 17 to 17 ½ years old find themselves in a sort of twilight zone when it comes to finding a place that meets their needs for treatment. Many residential treatment centers and therapeutic boarding schools have a population that clusters around 14-16 year-olds, with a focus on middle school/high school academics and social dynamics. Family therapy work is often focused on helping students reintegrate into their parents’ homes. On the other hand, young adult transition programs tend to work with people ages 18-26 who have already completed high school in most cases and who have passed through some key developmental stages. That includes coming to grips with the reality that turning 18 did not in fact mean that they can “do anything they want.” People who are in that 17 ½-year-old range often find they are on the fringe of both age cohorts in these types of programs, and neither is zeroed in on their unique needs.

What are those unique needs? First, they need a real experience of autonomy and independence while still having an adequate amount of support and structure that is custom fit to their level of emotional maturity. Second, they need help developing a vision of what their adult lives can be by having access to young adult peers, while not plunging them into levels of young adult responsibilities that they are not yet ready to tackle. Third, they need a bridge from their adolescent levels of self-care to the levels of independent functioning that will be required of them as young adults.

These are the needs that the Senior House at Telos U was designed to fit. At the Senior House, young adults aged 17 ½ to 18 are placed in their own sub-program, but still, have interaction with the larger young adult population of Telos U. They are given structure and support that recognizes their need to grow into adult levels of functioning, but also acknowledges the skills that they have not yet developed and are not yet ready to deploy independently. It serves them with a peer group who are all making the same paradigm shift into viewing young adulthood through a more realistic and more hopeful perspective. And, it provides a context for family therapy and interventions that are focused on the shifting relationship between parents and young adult children. This is all-encompassed in a program designed to naturally and seamlessly unfold into a young adult transition program as the student progresses. Within this context, Senior House students have the benefit of a program that was entirely designed for the specific needs of their unique developmental stage.

About Telos

Telos is located at the base of the Wasatch Mountains in beautiful Orem, Utah. Available are two campuses specifically designed for teens and co-ed young adults dealing with depression, anxiety, social problems, and learning differences. Caring staff use proven clinical therapies coupled with the power of healing relationships to promote deep, lasting change. The aim is to help students live principle-based lives characterized by insightful choices that promote clarity, healing and direction. Telos is a unique, clinically-sophisticated, relationship-based treatment center for teens and young adults ages 13-26. For more information: info@telos.org or online at telos.org. Now a proud member of Choose Mental Health.