Goals and Purposes of the Wilderness Programs

To begin, multiple options have been made to provide therapeutic interventions for at risk youth like wilderness experience programs. According to Ruddell and Thomas, wilderness experience programs can include adventure-based therapy, wilderness therapy, outdoor behavioral healthcare, experimental learning, or education and wilderness boot camps (Ruddell & Thomas, 2009). Wilderness programs generally deal with less serious offenders.

The purpose and goal of wilderness programs are to provide personal growth, therapy, rehabilitation, education, and leadership as well as organizational development for delinquent youth as an alternative to juvenile detention or commitment (Ruddell & Thomas, 2009). This is highly important because I believe this gives youths a second chance at changing their behavior and leading them in the right direction. I do expect the goal of wilderness programs is to basically provide the youth with important qualities in order to improve and prevent them from reoffending. I found a quote by Nicholas Kristof and he stated that “The wilderness is healing, a therapy for the soul” (Nicholas Kristof Quotes). This quote clarifies the goal for wilderness programs for adolescents.

Wilderness programs are not at all like some other innovative treatment techniques that is as of now utilized by the juvenile justice system. Wilderness programs are non-corrective, so they change conduct by presenting young people to nature not through standardization, unforgiving discipline, or driving them to check in with a post-trial supervisor occasionally. This leads me to say that juveniles in bootcamps have to live in a military atmosphere with drill and ceremony, platoon grouping, and strict discipline.

This may cause kids to react because of how they are being treated. It can be positive for some but what about the other children who don’t like being yelled at, and who do not do well with being disciplined? On the other hand, wilderness programs give children the chance to temporarily escape the bad neighborhoods they live in, enter new environments, make new friends, and build new skills or sharpen their own.

Many people might be wondering, what can we do to help prevent wrongful behaviors amongst the youth? Well to be honest, removing them from all distractions in their life can be a step in rehabilitating the youth. This is what wilderness programs do for the youth. Parents must present positive things to the child’s life in order to see results. If parents cannot do this then wilderness programs are key in maintaining a positive atmosphere for the youth.

In order to successfully determine if wilderness programs are effective, I believe that interviews and surveys must be conducted toward the youth, the parents, and those who work for the wilderness programs. This data will determine how the youth act going into these programs as well as how much they have changed and if it was effective for that child.

This data will also show what parents think of the programs depending on the child’s improvement. As for the workers, they get to determine if it is effective depending on what they deal with starting and what works and does not work.