Turn About Ranch is a working horse and cattle ranch in the stunningly beautiful Escalante region of Utah. Troubled teens come to The Ranch for 100 days, to participate fully in the working of the ranch and care of the animals and to participate in an intensive therapeutic and academic program. The powerful combination of hard working ranch life and experiential therapy causes great internally motivated change.

We teach traditional Christian values and we recognize the value of a hard and honest day's work, and we instill in all that work beside us the importance of integrity, honesty and responsibility.

Turn About Ranch is an accredited member of the Northwest Association of Accredited Schools. Clinical staff members are master's level therapists and academic credits are transferable.

What Kinds of Teens Come to The Ranch?

We take in troubled teens, and through positive encouragement and modeling, participation in ranch life, an intensive therapy program and the life changing magic of working with and on horses, we help teens find a better path.

A typical adolescent entering into our 100 day program demonstrates one or more of the following:

• Drug or alcohol use
• Defiant behaviors
• Low self esteem
• Entitlement issues
• Disrupting the family dynamic
• Running away
• Sexual promiscuity
• Truancy
• Academic underachievement
• Depression
• Manipulation
• Lying
• Anger management issues
• Others

We take in good kids that are having some trouble and help them grow.

Why a Ranch?

A working ranch is a special place, demanding but very rewarding, simultaneously.

Students here immerse themselves in a natural world free from distractions such as TV, the internet, video games, shopping, partying and others. Most teens that come to the ranch are immersed in a world unlike anything they've ever known.

There is great value in a therapy experienced outside of a teen's comfort zone. Teens at the ranch will be assigned a horse to take care of during their stay, in addition to the care and working of other animals, learning responsibility and empathy, from the animals in their charge.

Ranch life is a hard work, but teaches the value of team work, trust and responsibility and provides at the end of each day an earned sense of accomplishment (to accompany pleasant physical fatigue).

Students at the ranch play an essential role in the working of the spread and of the care of the animals. They connect with something larger than themselves and learn the value of participating in the greater good. They learn how great it can feel to earn a responsibility and to fulfill it, and how satisfying it can be to do more than you thought you could, each and every day.

We are proud to teach and instill the traditional Christian values and ethics of hard work, responsibility, honesty, caring and compassion.

Therapy

A lot of students that come to the ranch have had experience in the past working with therapists or counselors, in once weekly sessions in a formal office or clinical environment – but these interventions have not helped.

Therapy at Turn About Ranch is intensive and delivered by master's level therapists but teens at the ranch need not head to a doctor's office for therapy sessions, therapy gets integrated into every part of ranch living.

Counselors work with and beside teens during the full ranch day and use the experiences of working life to serve as an experiential base for regular informal therapeutic interventions. Learning horsemanship, the care of horses (and other ranch animals) and formal equine therapy all play important and very therapeutic roles in the Turn About Ranch curriculum.

Individual, group and family therapies occur on a daily basis at the ranch. Therapists will also maintain contact with parents through once a week phone call updates and plan and update an individualized treatment plan for each teen, as necessary.

Academics

Turn About Ranch offers an accredited and licensed high school program that offers academic credit in:

• Science
• Math
• Social Studies
• English
• P.E.

Teachers use a wide variety of presentation styles, (visual, auditory, tactile, etc.) to allow those with diverse learning styles an opportunity to excel and classes head out into the natural environment often, to make use of experiential learning in the great outdoors.

Every student will receive an academic assessment and the academic director will then develop an individualized learning plan, based on interviews with parents, the results of the assessment and dialogue with the home school.

With small class sizes, individual attention and a personalized teaching plan, each student has an opportunity to for academic excellence.

Vocational Classes

Some students benefit greatly from hands-on vocational instruction, and all students enjoy learning these practical life skills. Vocational classes can include subjects such as:

• Small engine repair
• Car mechanics
• Culinary arts
• Carpentry
• Computer repair
• Others

Teens who struggle academically (in a classroom setting) often find these experiential learning classes an enormous confidence builder, and some find a vocation they love and choose to pursue more formally after leaving the ranch.

Year Round Admission

Turn About Ranch accepts runs year round, and can accept students, from the ages of 13 to 17, at any time throughout the year.

Financial assistance is available to those that qualify (call for details) and parents may also apply for tuition financing, to spread the costs of the program.