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Schools & Program
Visits - Apr, 2000 Issue #68
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Forest Heights Lodge
Evergreen, Colorado
303-674-6681
Visit Report on January 7, 2000
By Carol Maxym, Ph.D.
San Diego, CA
info@drcmaxym.com
There is something especially poignant, I think, about children
as young as 5, 6, or 10 years old for whom living at home is not a viable alternative, but it is sometimes the case. Forest Heights
Lodge makes that difficult realization more palatable because it is a place that provides a boy and his family the opportunity to
change and to establish new bonds of love and care. A program with a long and proven track record (it has been helping boys and their
families since 1954), staffed by caring professionals, it is based upon a theoretical model of attachment difficulties. Set in the
first range of the Colorado Rockies, about an hour from downtown Denver, Forest Heights provides residential care and education to
boys who are age 5-14 at the time of admission.
A more spectacular setting, conducive to the concept of making residential
treatment a “gratifying life experience” could hardly be found. The campus is large, attractive, and comfortable. The bedrooms are
appropriate to the setting, neither too rustic nor too elaborate; the common rooms, spacious but cozy. As I find at most programs,
a resident dog or two help to make the atmosphere even warmer and more friendly. The boys looked good and impressed me with a generally
purposeful demeanor.
I had the chance to have a long and exciting conversation with Linda
Clefisch, the Executive Director. A knowledgeable and experienced professional with a deep ability to empathize, she is eloquent in
her description of the program, its mission, and the everyday aspects of how it works. Her warmth and caring are as evident as her
grasp of the problems at hand and ideas for how to solve them.
A major reason for the success experienced by Forest Heights and
the boys and families it serves is due to the long and thorough admissions process. Before a boy—or perhaps more accurately said,
the family—is admitted, a staff member stays in their home to assess and understand the dynamics which underlie the presenting difficulties
and to determine if the boy can be successful in the program. This is not a program that can do an overnight placement.
Forest Heights, far from being based upon a “sickness” model, instead
emphasizes the building of close personal relationships, starting with the care givers in the program, extending to other boys in
the program, and definitely including the family. Towards this end, the staff is kept small, and the staff and family are a team.
Forest Heights emphasizes that boys who need to be there have made poor choices in the ways they chose to express their feelings.
It teaches them not to discount their feelings, but to learn how to express them more appropriately.
There are only three basic rules: 1. The staff must know where the
boys are at all times; 2. Boys are not permitted out of the yard without permission; and 3. “No hands on” which means that no one
will hurt any boy, and no boy will be hurt. Having few rules helps to minimize the possibilities for manipulation and allows for the
focus to be on the real issues of trust and feelings which these boys need help understanding and living.
The program is non-punitive; instead boys may be asked to sit down
to stop and think about the way they have acted. The boys must work hard to change, but to balance that “there is a strong emphasis
on life’s being gratifying and worthwhile. A child must be able to have fun, achieve successes and learn what it is to feel good.”
When boys complete the Forest Heights program, some return home and many move on to either specialized or normal boarding schools.
Forest Heights is expensive; I do not mean over-priced, because
it is worth every penny of the tuition, rather, in addition to the cost of the program, the importance of family involvement usually
requires additional money for travel. Plane tickets for the boys to visit at home, for the family to visit the boy in Evergreen, as
well as to participate in family therapy can add to the initial program expense. Like so many wonderful programs, Forest Heights has
the “disadvantage” that it is usually full, but it would always be worth a call to see if there might be a place for the boy who needs
their special atmosphere and therapy.
This is an extraordinary program. Realizing many years ago that
to expand the program would have changed its character, the staff of Forest Heights has instead chosen to reach more boys by educating
professionals throughout the world in the theory and techniques which they have created and perfected. There are also two books available
which are authored and edited by the Forest Heights staff: Residential Treatment: A Tapestry of Many Therapies and A Child’s Journey
through Placement.
Copyright © 2000, Woodbury Reports, Inc. (This article may be reproduced
without prior approval if the copyright notice and proper publication and author attribution accompanies the copy.)
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