A Typical Day at SUWS Youth

The SUWS Youth program is designed with the specific needs of pre-teens and younger adolescents in mind. The daily schedule varies depending on whether the group is on a “layover” day or hiking through the wilderness.

Hiking Days
On hiking days, students wake up around 7 a.m., brush their teeth and take care of their basic hygiene needs, and eat a hot breakfast. After packing up camp and saddling the group’s llamas, students gather in a circle and share their goals for the day.

Five days a week, students hike through the Bennett Hills of southern Idaho. Students climb up to outlook points and down into canyons, stopping for frequent health checks and breaks for lunch and journaling.

After hiking, students eat lunch and set up camp. In the afternoon, they have time to work on arts and crafts projects and the SUWS “curriculum,” which guides them through the physical aspects of our program (such as primitive skills, knot tying, geographical topics and animal tracking), personal care and personal growth. Students can earn academic credit for completing their daily assignments. During their free time, students play games, sing songs and find other creative ways to entertain themselves in the wilderness.

Around 6 p.m., the groups eat dinner and meet with their field instructor to follow up on their treatment plans. Every night students have “store,” which is based on SUWS’ token economy system. Students can use beads they earned throughout the day as a reward for positive behavior (or absence of negative behavior) to either buy necessities (for example, to replace a lost pencil or glove) or to “buy” extra food items, art and crafts materials, or other items. 

Before going to bed around 10 p.m., students gather around the campfire for games, songs and a discussion to give closure to the day.

Layover Days
Two days a week students are stationed at base camp, a familiar camping spot where their days are structured with the following activities:

• * Meet with their primary therapist for individual and group therapy sessions
• * Engage in hands-on therapeutic activities such as ropes course initiatives, equine therapy and service projects at least once or twice a week
• * Work on primitive skills such as trap building and bow drilling (rubbing two pieces of wood together to create fire)
• * Enjoy a few minutes of free time to do laundry, write letters, play games and take a well-deserved shower

Sample Schedule at SUWS Youth Wilderness Program

Ropes Course
Students participate in team-building and leadership initiatives on our high and low ropes course. The perceived risk and complexity of some of the ropes course elements bring up mixed emotions in pre-teens, giving our therapists opportunities to help students overcome challenges, build confidence and deal with frustration in a safe, therapeutic environment.

Equine Therapy
Equine therapy is a powerful way for youth to overcome their fears and learn new ways to approach problems. Working with horses can be intimidating and stir up feelings of frustration and anger, giving at-risk youth an opportunity to learn to work through those emotions in healthy ways. Through their experience with the horses, pre-teens also learn trust, compassion and teamwork.

Service Projects
At SUWS wilderness program, we believe that we have an obligation to be good stewards of the land and model gratitude and responsibility for our students. Our groups participate in a variety of service projects with an emphasis on habitat restoration and land improvement.

Initiatives
Students complete a variety of team-building initiatives during their time at SUWS Youth, from low ropes course elements to a blindfolded walk in the field.