TPP 338: When Home Isn’t Working: How to Find Therapeutic Programs, with Sue Scheff

Today I’m bringing you an episode that covers a new topic for this show — how to find the right program when you realize your child is in need of more substantial therapeutic support or intervention. I’ve wanted to cover this topic for a long time because I know how overwhelming it can be if this is a road your family is going down. Sue Scheff has decades of experience in this field, personal and professional, and I’m grateful she joined me to shed light on the ins and outs of navigating different therapeutic programs. 

With Sue’s fascinating background, we could have explored many different topics for this episode, but what I wanted to do in this conversation is to have Sue give us an overview of the options available to parents whose kids are struggling with challenging or dangerous behaviors and are in need of more intensive supports. Sue explains the difference between therapeutic boarding schools, residential treatment centers and wilderness programs, what the signals are that a child would benefit from these types of supports, how to identify the best fit program, the possibilities for having programs covered by insurance, and much more. 

About Sue Scheff

Founder and President of Parents’ Universal Resource Experts Inc. (P.U.R.E.™), Sue Scheff has been leveraging her personal experiences to help others through her organization since 2001. 

After being stalked, harassed, bullied and slandered online – in 2006, Scheff won a landmark case for internet defamation with an $11.3M jury verdict. Since then, she’s been an advocate for cyberbullying prevention and promoting the importance of online reputation. 

She has three published books, Wit’s End (HCI 2007), Google Bomb (HCI 2009) with a foreword by Michael Fertik, and her latest, Shame Nation: The Global Epidemic of Online Hate (Sourcebooks 2017) with a foreword by Monica Lewinsky.

Things you'll learn from this episode

• The differences between therapeutic boarding schools, residential treatment centers, and wilderness programs
• What the signs are that a child may be in need of more intensive intervention or a therapeutic program
• How to go about identifying and vetting programs that are an ideal fit for a child’s individual challenges
• The possibilities that exist for having the high cost of therapeutic programs be partially (or fully) covered by insurance
• Whether or not parents should be concerned about placing their teens in programs where their peer group may be dealing with more problematic behavior and negatively influence a teen
• Why any therapeutic program has to involve the whole family in order for it to be effective 

Resources mentioned for 

• Sue Scheff’s website
• Parents’ Universal Resource Experts Inc. (P.U.R.E.™)
• Wit’s End: Advice and Resources for Saving Your Out-of-Control Teen by Sue Scheff
• Google Bomb: The Global Epidemic of Online Hate by Sue Scheff
• Shame Nation: The Global Epidemic of Online Hate by Sue Scheff
• Sue Scheff on Facebook

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