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Educational Services

Experiential Therapies

Inner Harbour emphasizes the crucial role of appropriate therapeutic services and offers a comprehensive array of programs which gently and progressively guide the individual.

Inner Harbour provides an ideal setting for pioneering outdoor wilderness programs involving hiking, caving, canoeing, climbing and camping, that teach troubled adolescents how to build relationships, trust others, and resolve conflict.

Experiential therapy is incorporated throughout the hospital, breaking through treatment barriers when traditional therapies have not been as effective. Children and adolescents who are referred to Inner Harbour have often been in previous treatment settings and require different strategies to make treatment gains.

Experiential methods help students build positive traits and protective factors such as an increased sense of purpose, pro-social leadership skills, increased interpersonal skills and development of a positive classroom climate. Adventure-based problem-solving activities empower students to develop creativity and insight and then apply these skills to real-life situations and future learning.

All learning is experience-based. Whether we hear a lecture, watch a video, or read a book, our learning is "based" on those experiences. Unfortunately, we remember 20% of what we hear, 50% of what we see, but 80% of what we do.

As Confucius said, "I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand."

Experiential learning is founded more on the active "doing" rather than the passive "being done to". In this way, people practice the very skills they are learning and are more likely to maintain their change back at work. Experience-based learning (action alone) becomes "experiential" when elements of reflection, transfer and support are added to the base experience:

• Reflection - purposefully examining the process of an experience enhances the awareness of learning and leads to changes in feeling, thinking or behaving that derive from that experience;
• Transfer - when change obtained in an experiential program shows up in the real life workplace: this transfer of experiential learning can be enhanced by the use of metaphors.
• Support - providing time, resources, and team or project opportunities that permit people to continue changing (or maintaining new learning) and allows them to lessen their resistance.

Daily, groups participate in thematic mindful exercise, blending the movements of BrainGym^TM, which balance the brain for optimal learning, and the poses of Yoga which reflect the awareness of self and reverence for nature.

Animal Assisted Therapy (AAT)
Children and their families can take advantage of the presence of our therapy animals in a beautiful setting that encourages healing. The horses previously mentioned are part of that experience as are our residential dogs, and classroom animals from a bearded dragon to fish, to small mammals and pocket pets. One campsite has two miniature goats that are the responsibility of the residents.

Art Therapy
Art therapy allows children to use art as a means to express their feelings and to change problematic behavior.

Through the Expressive Arts Program in the Education Department at Inner Harbour, the students have the opportunity to create integrated and comprehensive artworks, such as self-portraits, quilts, handmade paper, masks, artist dolls, and many other projects. Through the artistic, academic, and therapeutic integration of the projects, the students are given the opportunity to create connections within themselves, with the love of learning, and with the community in which they live. The Expressive Arts Program at Inner Harbour focuses on quality art instruction, therapeutic integration, and academic infusion. With art as our tool, we hope to open the students to themselves as well as to world around them.

Equine Therapy
A nationally accredited equine therapy program teaches children and youth about responsibility, empathy, trust, and relational self-confidence.

Natural wilderness sets the stage for a unique and innovative residential treatment program. The rolling fields and winding trails provide a peaceful setting for the development of a meaningful, positive relationship between resident and horse.

Inner Harbour professionals utilize the gentleness and strength of the horse to provide a valuable adjunct to the traditional therapy each youth receives. The horse is a living, breathing, therapeutic tool that naturally grabs a youth's attention and motivates even the most treatment-resistant child. Many times this is the first exposure the resident has to real trust and responsibility - caring for another life in a manner that teaches and develops the resident in a positive manner.

Horses have the capacity to read human emotions with amazing accuracy. They sense trust, uncertainty, fear, happiness, and everything in between. It is in this relationship with a horse the children and adolescents at Inner Harbour begin to trust again and heal. The horses never pass judgment.

Goals for Therapeutic Riding Program

• To facilitate equine experiences for children and adolescents in a therapeutic environment
• To enable the youth to increase psychosocial development, coping skills and self-esteem
• To provide youth opportunity to put problem-solving abilities into practice in a real life experience
• To reacquaint these youth with the true meaning of "trust" and "responsibility"
• To educate others in the value of therapeutic riding in the treatment of troubled children

"My favorite horse is White Cloud. I felt that I have a bond with her. You can tell she is wild deep down inside... kind of like me." -Participant

AAT is a goal-directed, documented intervention that is used to address the clinical symptoms of the child through the inclusion of a therapy animal. AAT is commonly used to increase the involvement of the child in his or her therapy, offer a safe way to explore touch and boundaries, and increase self esteem through the acquisition of new skills.

The residents frequently comment how much the animals love them without judgment and frequently feel more comfortable disclosing their troubles to a therapy animal. AAT is an important part of the therapy offered at Inner Harbour.

Therapeutic Drumming Program
Inner Harbour is known throughout the Southeast for its innovative approach to the treatment of youth. In 1996, we developed an exciting and effective program in Therapeutic Drumming which uses the building of West African drums and the teaching of traditional rhythms and culture to help our youth heal and become positive members of the community.

West African style therapeutic drumming engages young participants in building and playing drums, improving hand-eye coordination, stimulating brain activity, and teaching musical skills that will last a lifetime.

West African drumming traditions are old and powerful. They have proved to be notably effective in helping the youth at Inner Harbour work through emotional and social issues which are important to their recovery and healing. Students report that 30 minutes of drumming reduces feelings of anger and depression and replaces them with feelings of rejuvenation and feeling alive, stronger, and hopeful. Groups which are dysfunctional, or having difficulties, quickly find ways to work together and be supportive of each other when they begin to drum. These immediate benefits are enhanced by increasing skills in cooperation, awareness, frustration tolerance, and mental focus, among others.

"I never thought I would find something that feels as good as drugs, but this does." -Participant

Click to download African drumming audio (1.4 MB MP3 file).

Ropes Courses
Ropes courses can be seen as the ultimate group or team challenge. Ropes courses are a combination of both vertical challenges and horizontal challenges, constructed from wood, cable and ropes installed above the ground and strung between trees, wood poles or steel framework.

When groups or individuals go up on a ropes course, there is a great opportunity for them to learn about risk taking, their own perceived limits, how they perform under pressure, how they give and receive support from other people, and how working with others collaboratively can help an individual achieve more than they thought they could accomplish.

The ropes course is a powerful tool which allows our youth to deal with his or her issues and problems by placing them in situations where they have to trust others to keep them safe and allow themselves to feel and break down the protective walls they have built to shield themselves from abuse, neglect, abandonment, and a negative sense of self. The ropes course places the individual in an environment where they can achieve higher self esteem, a sense of self worth, and focus which is vital when dealing with children and adolescents that have trouble talking about their problems in a traditional group therapy setting.

Contact Us for Assistance
For more information about how Inner Harbour programs help young people build upon their strengths to overcome life's most difficult challenges, call 1-800-255-8657, or CLICK HERE.