| New
Perspectives
- Jun, 1991 Issue |
Secret Harbor School
(206) 293-5151
Cypress Island, WA
By Sue Street, Admissions
Founded in 1949, Secret Harbor
is a private not-for-profit year-round residential treatment school
for up to 30 boys ages 10 to 18. Located on 340 acres on Cypress Island
in Puget Sound, it uses it's location to symbolize a dramatic break
with a boy's previous environment and lifestyle.
Academics are done through
small classes on the island (seldom more than eight students in a class)
accredited through the Anacortes School District. Individual tutoring
is available when needed, and for part of the classes, the school uses
tide pools for learning marine biology, local rock formations to study
geology, and all the island's bird, plant, insect and animal life to
enrich the study of natural sciences.
An integral part of each boy's
healing is individual psychotherapy, group therapy, and milieu therapy
under the direction of a child psychiatrist. Milieu therapy includes
a strong emphasis on the work ethic (it not only improves self-esteem,
but the only money a boy has is what he earns on campus), recreation
and athletics (which includes baseball, soccer, fishing, crabbing, and
clam digging), and positive relationships (16 full time emotionally
mature child care staff help each boy learn how to make positive friendships).
This Spring the school started
W.E.T., (Work Experience Training) in which students apply to learn
woodworking. They sell their products at local retail outlets. It seems
the school almost always has a waiting list.
Copyright
© 1991, Woodbury Reports, Inc. (This article may be reproduced without
prior approval if the copyright notice and proper publication and author
attribution accompanies the copy.) |
