Christian boarding schools and therapeutic schools for troubled teens with equine therapy, counseling for teens and troubled teen help.

Welcome to the Abundant Life Academy Christian Boarding School!

 

“I have come that they may have life,
and may have it in abundance.” – John 10:10

boarding school students
The goal of Abundant Life Academy is to provide teens and their families with the tools and resources to succeed and thrive academically, relationally and spiritually, equipping them to live a life of love, acceptance and forgiveness as modeled by Biblical principles and the life of Jesus Christ.

ALA’s qualified and caring team recognizes the unique, God-given nature in each of our students, and we work to embrace their strengths while teaching them to use their weaknesses for good. 

Our mission, above all else, is to transform lives and restore families through the grace of Jesus. 

We are located in beautiful St. George, Utah, have been in operation since 2000, and have helped hundreds of struggling teens and their families.  We came under new ownership in 2011, and have since re-structured our facility and staff to best serve our students and families. Our Christian therapeutic boarding school accepts teens age 13-17.

At Abundant Life Academy, we know that emotionally immature teens find comfort in the misdirected opinions of their peers while shunning the wisdom and direction of their parents.  Students enrolled in our therapeutic boarding school are most often in desperate need for a paradigm shift in the following areas:

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  • Spiritual Reconnection
  • Family Restoration
  • Academic Mastery
  • Emotional Growth & Intelligence
  • Advanced Leadership Discovery

 

At Abundant Life Academy, our team goes to great lengths to address each of these issues in a way that supports the family while creating a pathway for our students to take ownership in their personal growth and development at the same time.

 

 

Spiritual Reconnection

“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” – Isaiah 41:10

The foundation of Abundant Life Academy’s therapeutic program is the spiritual component.  We are a non-denominational Christian boarding school presenting the Word of God without compromise. We realize however, that most of our students come to us in a place where they have rejected their spiritual upbringing and are often in a state of defiance against their parent’s faith. At ALA, Christian principles are presented clearly and without concession, but in a way that permits each student to chart his or her own course.  The result of this model is that, when a student makes the choice to establish–or return to–their faith, it is done with a sense of ownership, establishing a relationship with Christ that will last long beyond his or her time at ALA. 

therapeutic boarding school

 

A large part of our spiritual program consists of providing opportunities for our students to move from being self-focused to becoming others-centered. The message of Jesus Christ is one of service and, as such, community service is required of our students at Abundant Life Academy. Students of ALA are required to complete 120 hours of community service in each of the three phases of the program.  Recently, we have been involved with Dixie Care & Share Food Bank and Homeless Shelter, United Way of Utah and the Utah Food Bank. 

 

 

Additionally, we provide Mercy Ministry trips at the local, national, and international level. Each student is required to attend a weekly on-site church service, youth group, and Bible classes. Additionally, we have numerous student-directed Bible studies, prayer groups, and praise & worship services which are provided on a voluntary basis.

 

Family Restoration

Abundant Life Academy is a Family Restoration program. While each teen is responsible for the personal choices they have made prior to enrollment at ALA, we would be naïve to assume that their choices were made completely independent of family involvement. We don’t want to simply enroll a student and spend a year “fixing them” only to send them back to the same environment from which they came – we want to restore hope to the whole family.  

Frequently, the parents of the students we serve have exhausted every resource they know of to help their child and are still at a loss. Our Family Restoration provides a time for the entire family to be restored, with parents engaged in their child’s growth from enrollment through graduation. We require that each parent commit to:

boarding school student and parents

 

  • Parent Coaching with a dedicated Parent Advocate
  • Independent Study (ie: reading and learning the same materials the teen is)
  • Parent Conferences
  • Family Restoration phone calls with the student’s Family Representative

The Family Restoration component culminates in a signed Family Covenant, drafted, and signed by the entire family. Great care is taken to ensure a successful re-entry into the family upon graduation.

 

Academic Mastery

At Abundant Life Academy, we believe that education is a privilege, and we offer a fully accredited, year-round educational program.  Each of our students is required to achieve an 80% or higher prior to scholastic advancement.

We place a high priority on our academic program and provide every student with an individualized educational plan and academic progress evaluations. Beyond the core courses provided to each student, we also have a venue for grade repair and credit recovery. This provides  students a second chance to reverse the effect their past poor choices have had on their educational goals.

Meet the Academic Team

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Emotional Growth and Intelligence

At ALA, we implement Positive Peer Culture as the primary model of our therapeutic environment, as opposed to other boarding schools that often focus on behavior modification. Additionally, we do not practice a traditional clinical approach with our students but instead initiate a model called Milieu Therapy. This simply means that, rather than sitting in an office with a clinician, the environment itself serves as the primary mode of counseling.

Milieu Therapy is rooted in earning the right to speak into a teen’s life based on trust and therapeutic rapport established through relationship. Each of our Life Coaches and therapists work directly on the floor with students and participate in their daily activities. We do, however, recognize the value of traditional methods so, in addition to Milieu Therapy, Abundant Life Academy also offers individual therapy, various topical group therapies, equine therapy, and pastoral counseling as determined by our therapeutic team.

 

Advanced Leadership Training

“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works,
which God prepared in advance for us to do.” – Ephesians 2:10

We believe that each of the teens that God brings to us has a purpose uniquely designed for them. As such, we provide advanced level leadership training in the areas of:

  • Personality Insights and Development
  • Emotional Intelligence
  • Interpersonal Communication and Relationship Skills
  • Peer Leadership

We take a holistic, comprehensive approach to each teen that we serve, and our most sincere desire is that they will have a complete opportunity to recognize the patterns that have led them to enrollment with us, implement the tools to make healthy choices, and then share that experience with others.

Please fill in our Inquiry Form to begin the enrollment process, or to learn more.





Christian Boarding School for Troubled Teens, with residential therapy for teens struggling with anger, depression, reactive attachment disorder (RAD), intermittent explosive disorder (IED), oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), attention deficit, attention deficit disorder (ADD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), substance abuse, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), eating disorders, self-harm, or rebellion. Abundant Life Academy is a therapeutic residential program and academy for troubled teenage boys and girls.

THERAPEUTIC CHRISTIAN BOARDING SCHOOL FOR TROUBLED TEENS

When you need help finding therapeutic boys programs, including boot camps for boys or boarding schools for boys please contact us. We can supply information on the boarding schools that are the best option for your teen, including boys boot camps and traditional boarding schools for boys.

School that provides troubled teens with teen counseling and adolescent therapy. Our therapeutic residential school serves teens from homes in the Midwest, in Texas, in California, in Oregon and in Washington State on the West Coast and in Arizona, in New Mexico, in Oklahoma and in Nevada in the Southwest. In the southern and central states we serve teens from homes in Arkansas, in Kentucky, in Tennessee, in Missouri, in Louisiana, in Florida, and in Mississippi. In the Midwest teens come to ALA from homes in Michigan, in Ohio, in Indiana, in Wisconsin and in Illinois. And in the northern states, from homes in Montana, in North Dakota, in Minnesota, and in Idaho. Along the East Coast we have teens in our therapeutic boarding school from families in Georgia, in Virginia, in New York, in North Carolina, in Pennsylvania, and in New Jersey. Troubled teens come to ALA mostly from the U.S. and Canada.