Generational Empowerment Model

At First Light Wilderness, parents will engage in a parallel therapeutic process with their students through a vast array of services.  Parents will engage in a weekly phone call with their student’s lead therapist to hear about their student’s process in the program and examine the family dynamics at play in the system. Additionally, parents will dive intensively into the parenting process and be challenged to develop skills to better understand their child’s difficulty and create a secure caregiving relationship. Though ongoing family work, provided readings, and therapeutic assignments, parents will feel more confident in their parent/child relationship.     

Family therapy with their child via phone and/or video calls may occur as appropriate over the course of the wilderness experience. In collaboration with the student and parents, therapists will determine timing and frequency of sessions in course of a student’s stay. A family intensive program will be offered once a month for students who have been in the program at least 4 weeks and will take place on location.  Parents will be invited out for a 3 day intensive program which will include parent only workshops, an individual family therapy session with their child, multifamily experiential sessions with their child, and dedicated parent-child time. 

Parents will be invited out for a 2-day intensive program which will include parent only workshops, an individual family therapy session with their child, multifamily experiential sessions with their child, and dedicated parent-child time.