PIEDMONT WILDERNESS INSTITUTE

MISSION, PHILOSOPHY, AND PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

Associated Marine Institutes (AMI) developed PIEDMONT WILDERNESS INSTITUTE (PWI) in 1990 as a comprehensive, highly structured, closely supervised, therapeutic and emotionally supportive form of residential treatment designed to provide integrated programming for at risk males within the state of South Carolina. PWI is located in Laurens County near Clinton, South Carolina on Highway 72. The primary mission of PWI is to enable males with a history of delinquent behaviors to overcome their problems to the degree that they may move to a less restrictive community placements with the majority of youths being returned to their families.

Youth attending the institute are juvenile offenders ranging in age from 14 - 17 years from the state of South Carolina, primarily the upstate. Youth are referred to PWI by the South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ). The youth are selected by a panel consisting of staff from PWI and DJJ. Their selection is based on their emotional and behavioral history, and their desire to change based on a demonstrated desire to positively modify future behaviors. Youth entering the program will have been seen by a licensed practitioner of the healing arts who is able to certify that the student meets the medical necessity criteria for a moderate management facility. A completed Medical Necessity Statement and Referral Form Authorization for Services will arrive with each youth.

The central treatment principle woven throughout PWI’s approach to counseling, education, and wilderness based curricula is to '"exhaust all available resources" in an effort to reach each youth. This proactive intervention approach, implemented by skilled and experienced staff via role modeling and advocacy forms the foundation of the AMI philosophy of individualizing the program in an effort to meet the specific needs of each youth accepted into the program. PWI intends to build upon relationships with the youth through short and long term goal setting, progressive educational, vocational, and wilderness related curricula. Individualized care, specialized counseling services, community work projects, and PWI's developmental life skill's curriculum will help to prepare these youth to successfully reintegrate into their communities.

The structure of PWI’s programming is designed to meet the following goals:

1.         Provide behavioral, psychological, and psychosocial treatment for those behaviors that resulted in placement at PWI, while enabling youth to replace unacceptable behaviors with socially approved behaviors.

2.         Increase self-esteem by improving academic skills, and successful completion of the PWI Program.

3.         Increasing independence and autonomy by developing vocational skills.

PWI’s treatment approach is an eclectic blending of A. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs theory, Wm. Glasser's Reality Based therapy, and B.F. Skinner's basic principles of behaviorism. Maslow asserts that humans have a hierarchical organization of needs according to their potency and primacy. Maslow identified a broad range of needs that he regarded as intrinsic and present in everyone and thus labeled them as basic or instinctual. The most powerful and proponent are fundamental survival-oriented needs with a clear physiological basis aimed at removing a deficit, such as hunger or thirst. As these needs are fulfilled, other less powerful needs, such as the need for shelter, affection, and self-esteem can become effective motivators in their turn. PWI provides a secure atmosphere, where youth's basic or survival needs are met, thus enabling them to respond to motivational interventions in an effort to form positive attachments with peers and improve their self-esteem. It is theorized that when an individual feels secure and believes his basic survival needs are ensured, he is then ready to engage in the process of becoming more self-directed, self-contained. Glasser's basic premise is that everyone in need of psychotherapeutic help denies reality and are, as a result, unable to fulfill their essential emotional needs. The basic needs relevant to psychological health are to love and be loved and the need to be worthwhile to oneself and to others.

Responsibility, another key concept of reality therapy, can be defined as the ability to fulfill one's needs in a manner that does not deprive others of the ability to meet their own needs. Glasser has expended considerable efforts in therapeutic endeavors with juvenile delinquents stressing the key concepts of morality and responsibility with the results of these endeavors indicating that juveniles with emotional/behavioral problems have never learned or have lost the ability to lead responsible and moral lives. Thus "responsible" comes to stand for mental health and "irresponsible" stands for "mental illness." PWI stresses individual responsibility and accepting the direct consequences of their actions. Staff provide emotional support, ongoing counseling and positive role modeling in an effort to assist youth in developing responsible and moral decision making skills and behaviors. B. F. Skinner has theorized that learning occurs in response to positive stimuli or in an effort to avoid negative stimuli. PWI has designed each youth's program of intervention to ensure that the individual is appropriately rewarded for engaging in socially acceptable behaviors, such as following instructions, caring for personal items, good personal hygiene, positive social interactions, etc. As a youth in this program he is able to gain privileges by advancing through the rank system. The frequency with which he is willing to exhibit defined behaviors consistent with good citizenship, the quicker he is able to advance through the rank/level system and successfully complete the PWI Program. By utilizing the primary principles of the above theories PWI is able to assist troubled youth to focus their energies on developing positive self-esteem, responsibility, and moral judgments; through mental and physical achievements, and learning to improve short and long term planning skills through experiencing the direct consequences of their actions; both positive and negative, while in a highly structured, closely supervised and emotionally supportive environment.