Frequently Asked Questions

We focus more on positive outcomes and less on time frames, while still remaining sensitive to the financial and emotional sacrifices being made by the family. A student and her family are finished with treatment when they have been on the Interdependence Phase for at least four weeks. Average completion time for attaining Interdependence Phase is between 10 and 12 months, although it can take longer.

Yes. While all students at New Haven are assigned female at birth, we frequently work with students who are questioning and/or identify as male or non-binary. We honor preferred pronouns and names. Social transition is supported at New Haven. Medical transition cannot be facilitated during treatment at New Haven.

Your first step is to contact us by calling 855.712.7612. We can then send you an application to complete. Our administrative team then approves your daughter to come. We have found it helpful for parents to come to our facility to tour and meet our staff. We realize this may not be possible due to the urgency to place immediately. The last step would be to make financial arrangements and schedule the admission date for your daughter.

We have a highly trained and experienced medical and clinical staff. Our Board Certified Psychiatrist, who specializes in adolescent psychiatry, is on call 24 hours a day. Our nursing department is headed by a Registered Nurse. We have clinicians with a wide variety of expertise and experience. All family and individual therapists are master's or PhD-level therapists. Our recreation therapists hold bachelor's degrees and are certified in their field. All therapists have expertise in family therapy but come from a variety of fields: marriage and family therapy, psychology, social work, and recreation therapy. We have a team of professionals who not only carry the needed credentials, but are capable of building therapeutic relationships, are effective, and share a true passion for working with adolescents and families.

Students may not contact anyone whom you do not permit them to contact. As a parent, you provide us with an approved mailing list and an approved calling list of the people that your daughter may contact.

Any and all information about your daughter and your family is completely confidential.

The answer to this question depends on each student's progress in therapy. Your child will have a minimum of one phone call per week with you outside of family therapy, starting the first week they are here. They will be able to call more frequently as they progress in therapy. Students may send and receive mail daily.

Our approach to healing involves the whole family. Your participation as a parent will be one of the most important keys to helping your child heal! Because we have collected outcomes since 2006, we know that long-lasting change is most likely to take place when the family is involved in the healing process. Parents participate in weekly family therapy done by video calls and come to campus for three days every eight weeks. Siblings are invited to participate in family therapy and visits to New Haven, at the appropriate time in treatment.

The safety of our students is our #1 priority at New Haven. In fact, when New Haven’s doors opened in 1995, it was because our founders were committed to creating a program that was different than the other programs that existed at the time. Our founders were working in another program and wanted something better for adolescent girls and their families. New Haven’s focus on safe, caring, transformative relationships both at New Haven and in your family continues to be one of our most important methods for healing.

There has been some negative press about residential treatment programs over the last few years. Most adolescents who have been in residential treatment have had good experiences. Unfortunately, some have not. New Haven operates very differently than residential treatment programs did 30 – 40 years ago. In the 1980s and 1990s, many programs were focused on behavior modification, sometimes including physical labor, which was thought to be the most effective way to help adolescents change their unhealthy behaviors. Many programs carried out behavior modification in therapeutic ways. Some did not. New Haven is proud to be one of the first relational programs in our field and the first adolescent treatment center specifically for biological females in Utah.

New Haven has been, and continues to be, committed to providing an out-of-home treatment option for families that we would be comfortable sending our own children to. We use a selective admissions process to ensure that the students coming to New Haven are not a risk to others. We track incidents and review them monthly. We hire carefully and continuously train our staff.

All New Haven employees:

• Pass a national background check clearing them to work with adolescents
• Go through an extensive training program at hire and ongoing throughout their employment
• Are trained in CPR and 1st aid
• Learn to use de-escalation techniques
• Have weekly training and 1:1 meetings with their supervisors at least monthly

New Haven is one of 19 programs in the United States that maintains NATSAP’s Research Designated Program Gold Status. NATSAP is the National Association for Therapeutic Schools and Programs, and New Haven is proud to belong to NATSAP. New Haven began collecting outcomes data in 2006 and maintains the most robust outcomes collection in our industry. We use standardized measures that are internally validated and reliable to measure family health, depression, suicidality, overall social and emotional health, progress on goals, safety, and client and family satisfaction. New Haven is accredited by The Joint Commission, the gold standard in health care accreditation in the United States.