Student life at La Europa is busy and exciting! The students are involved in many recreational, artistic and community activities each week. They set wellness goals and participate daily in P.E., wellness activities and Murray Recreation Center programs. And of course there is time for social interaction, personal and community creative activities, school and therapy.
Our Residential Philosophy
Commnity Interaction -Although La Europa is licensed as a residential treatment center and provides a sophisticated clinical program, we are not a lock-down facility. We believe in community interaction in order to normalize the treatment experience as much as possible for our students and help them practice skills in the community. Our students are in the Salt Lake City community five to seven days per week. This increases their chances for a successful transition back home.
A series of home passes throughout their stay allows the students and families to learn to generalize new skills which helps the team (including student, parents, therapist, referral source and other staff) to measure student and family progress.
Spacious Living, Smaller Peer Groups
Our residence is attractive, spacious and home-like. Building on the theme of "Europe", after our name, all our bedrooms are designated as popular European cities! We generally have three girls to a bedroom and each bedroom has its own large bathroom. Each student has room for her own personal belongings.
At La Europa, we divide our student population into two separate communities. We believe that smaller student groups allow for more intensive staff interaction, less social pressure and fewer stimuli to manage daily for girls who are sensitive to the noise and activity level of larger communities. Our staffing ratio is 1 staff for every 4 students which not only provides safety for all students but allows our staff to work with each student more intensively on their treatment plan.
Our residential staff at La Europa are hired for their ability to connect with young women and to provide healthy role models to the students. Many of our residential staff are in the process of seeking higher degrees to work in the helping professions and role model resiliency, strength and goal-orientation for our students.
New Student Orientation
We know how intimidating it can be for a new student to enter even a smaller peer group/community. At La Europa, each new student is assigned a peer mentor who helps orient her to the schedule, the rules and the social life. This helps new students integrate more quickly into the program. It also provides a leadership opportunity for students who have been at La Europa and are ready to provide peer mentoring leadership.
Practice! Practice! Practice!
The residential milieu is another primary vehicle for change at La Europa. The structure and activities are in place to promote healing and develop resiliency in our students as well as keeping them engaged, learning and practicing new insights. There are three core components of our residential milieu that provide the "container" for the student to learn about herself and explore changes:
- Daily program structure: Many of our students struggle with structuring their own time and respond well to a structured schedule. This reduces anxiety and helps students manage emotions as well as providing many "teachable" moments throughout the day to coach students on the use of new skills, time management strategies and handling social interactions. Our daily structure includes chore time, quiet/reflection time, physical activity, school, therapy, social interaction and activities. See a copy of our schedule, click here.
- Level system: The level system at La Europa is designed to provide additional structure for the therapeutic process. As students move through the program, the level system assists them in mastering challenges that are presented along the way and rewards them for efforts with more privileges. Our level system is not used as a punishment but as a support to help students succeed by providing another part of the "container" that becomes more flexible as the student progresses.
- Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) interventions: At La Europa, we use a variety of DBT interventions to help students understand their behavior, learn to break behaviors down into smaller action steps and identify and practice effective skills to effectively manage behavior and emotions. Learn more about DBT at La Europa, click here.
Animals at La Europa
Many of our students are passionate about connecting with and helping animals. La Europa is connected with the Intermountain Therapy Animal organization and participates in activities with this group. A number of staff bring their certified therapy dogs to the residence on a regular basis. Our students also participate in regular community service at the Humane Society.