Ten years ago, Adventist GlenOaks Hospital in Glendale Heights, Ill., opened doors to a therapeutic day school of its own in response to the lack of programs in the community to meet the whole-person needs of young behavioral health clients.
“At that time, alternative schools only focused on conduct disorders and had high drop-out rates,” notes Lisa Grigsby, now GlenOaks Therapeutic Day School principal and director of child and adolescent outpatient services at Adventist GlenOaks Hospital.
“We give the students and their parents hope. We try to keep their future in front of them and place them in lifelong growth areas where they learn social, living, or vocational skills. Our ultimate goal is to assist students in the development of self-awareness, confidence, and problem-solving strategies so they can re-enter community schools and transition into successful careers.”
Today, fully accredited and self-contained in a former industrial building, GlenOaks Therapeutic Day School is the number one referral choice of area school districts, thanks to its 100 percent graduation rate. The school is licensed for 120 students, and future plans call for an expansion to fulfill a critical market void in the far western suburbs. The student-teacher ratio is about three to one.
According to Grigsby, “Many of our students are diagnostic quandaries. They have met multiple failures and their families are desperate. Our students have been victimized, hospitalized for extended care, and are emotionally fragile for a variety of reasons. Our staff has a great knack for figuring out what’s wrong, whether it’s medication issues, determining behavior triggers, or something else.
“While many of our students are not able to function in large suburban school environments, they still need to be challenged academically. Our high school curriculum goes beyond reading, writing, and arithmetic,” says Grigsby. “Core curriculum is enhanced with stimulated elective offerings such as advanced biology, child development, or photography.
“We support our students through more than one-on-one counseling or group sessions. We offer art, music, recreational, and pet therapies. With this variety, our non-verbal students can get in touch with their feelings.”
GlenOaks Therapeutic Day School, which serves third-grade through high school students, also offers extracurricular activities. “Perhaps in their past, these students made unhealthy choices. We help them build skills they didn’t come in with. This gives them something new to excel in,” says Grigsby.
Through extra-curricular activities, students learn skills and are introduced to a hobby they can stay involved with after they transition out of GlenOaks Therapeutic Day School. The activities include choir, theatre arts, sports, chess, bowling, peer mediation, Outreach Club, Poetry Club, Student Council, Boys Group, Girls Group, Environmental Group, and Substance Abuse Education.
Students, faculty, and staff build each other up through a community program, Character Counts, which instills values of responsibility, fairness, citizenship, respect, caring, and trustworthiness. Past students who have returned to serve on the Advisory Group for the school have said, “You taught us skills we didn’t know how to use, but now we use them in college, work, or with our own families.”
GlenOaks Therapeutic Day School students find the alternative school a safe and secure environment to learn in, but their success is measured in becoming whole again and learning to take risks to move on with their lives.
Lynn Larson, Adventist Midwest Health writer/media liaison
