By Yvette Slagle, Outreach Assistant
Pacific Quest was recently featured on LA Talk Radio with Lon Woodbury focusing on “Parent Choices for Struggling Teens”. Pacific Quest’s Land Supervisor Travis Slagle and Dr. Katie Kasenchak were guests on the show and highlighted some of the key aspects that set Pacific Quest apart from other wilderness therapy programs and how students benefit from our Sustainable Growth treatment model.
Travis and Dr. Katie emphasized Sustainable GrowthTM as a progressive therapeutic treatment model that sets a gold standard of care for innovate youth programs and clinical sophistication for troubled teens and young adults. Sustainability is deeply rooted in an ecological perspective that is forward thinking; driven by the interconnection of nature, the cycles and season of life, and the intrinsic desire for meaning in our lives. In this model, organic gardening takes the place of backpacking and wilderness survival, which in turn builds self-esteem through growing healthy food and working with nature vs. battling with it. By working and living in an organic garden in Hawaii, students internalize the care they give to the garden as the care needed for themselves, their families, and their future communities. Travis stated, “Sustainable GrowthTM is a direct challenge to the “rugged individual” model of wilderness therapy and our consumer driven society by placing the highest value on what we can give vs. what we take.”