Mountain Valley Treatment Center

Knower Academics has proudly provided educational programming at Mountain Valley Treatment Center (MVTC) since the treatment center first opened. After more than a decade of partnership with MVTC, our educators have developed a specialty in supporting these amazing, unique, creative, and intelligent students as they work to understand and overcome academic anxiety. Our instructors work with residents and their support team to craft therapeutically appropriate educational opportunities for students during their stay at MVTC.

Knower Academics works closely with MVTC to offer academic opportunities while still prioritizing treatment. Our goal is to offer academics that enhances treatment and helps students explore their school placement options post-MV graduation. Residents only begin additional academic work after they are already fully engaged in all module programming and both residential and clinical teams agree that adding a targeted academic component is in the student’s best interest. While academics may be an important aspect of treatment for some residents, for other residents academics is not a priority. Thus, all academics at MVTC are optional. All academic programming with Knower is offered at added cost to families.

Register with Knower Academics

To register your MVTC student with Knower Academics, please visit our registration portal, knoweracademics.com/align/register-align/

Knower Academics may only begin instruction:

1. After a registration has been completed.
2. After Mountain Valley’s treatment team has agreed that the student is ready to incorporate a school component into their hierarchy of treatment.

 

What are Therapeutically-Informed Academics™ (Therademics™)?

Exposure Response Prevention (ERP) therapy is a core tenet of MVTC’s proven approach to helping adolescents cope with anxiety. Through ERP, residents and clinical team members confront and work through scenarios associated with anxiety; as residents face their fears, they grow stronger and wiser from the experience. Many students at MVTC have a long history of anxiety surrounding academics (often associated with homework, class participation, or assessments), which may lead to distress in the classroom or outright school avoidance. During their stay at MVTC, students who contract with Knower Academics gain a unique opportunity to address academic anxiety as part of their therapeutic milieu.

Knower Academics instructors may incorporate specific ERP exposure activities, as recommended by clinicians, into the framework of daily lesson plans for residents. For example, if a resident has anxiety related to public speaking, the student may be encouraged to read out loud during literature class and share pieces of writing during community meetings. This approach, Therapeutically Informed Academics™, or Therademics™, born of this unique partnership between Knower Academics and the Mountain Valley clinical team, has allowed teacher and therapist to work together to accomplish what each alone could not: changing the academic trajectory of these gifted students.

All Knower offerings are informed by the student’s treatment team. And other residential faculty are present in all Knower sessions and settings. They encourage students to enact therapeutic themes, coping strategies, etc. to manage the anxiety or avoidance-based behaviors that often arise in academic settings.

Academics is recommended if the clinical team has determined that an increased academic focus is an appropriate part of the student’s hierarchy of needs and therapeutic goals.  After a thorough intake process, Knower Academics completes a detailed Individualized Learning Plan for each of our students, adjusting our goals, subject focus, and hours of support to integrate just the right amount of academic challenge into the student’s treatment at MVTC. All students begin with two classes per week, one hour each, in a single subject. From here, students may increase their hours of instruction or add homework, if the treatment team agrees that the student is ready for this added challenge.

Knower classes are designed to allow students to stay up to speed with a reduced course load or to possibly begin to recover credit in one or two courses. Knower helps the student and their team explore the ideal academic environment and determine what kind of school would best fit the student. Communication focuses on connecting the clinical team, parents, teachers, and educational consultants so all can work together to chart the ideal future course for MVTC graduates.

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Academic Programming Options at MVTC

	Academic opportunities during treatment...				...and after.
	Therademics	Therademics for Credit	Know Your Mind	S.A.V.E. Study Group	Ongoing Support for MV Graduates
DESCRIPTION	Support a specific subject area or build executive skills; Improve confidence and manage anxiety-provoking situations; Gather data to inform academics post-treatment and prepare to return to the classroom.	Make instruction count toward your transcript by adding Knower curriculum and documentation to Therademics instruction; Documentation may be accepted by schools for credit or attached to the student's transcript.	Examine the roots of academic anxiety; Experiment with specialized strategies to improve un-helpful patterns; Develop specific and customized academic supports.	Study among peers; Balance priorities, manage time and build independence in a therapeutic small group academic support setting; Practice task completion, self-advocacy, and using resources.	Set up a smooth transition back to school; Communicate cohesively with faculty; Continue to work directly with Knower for your coursework or get support for school classes.
CURRICULA	Knower supports another curriculum; Coursework may be provided by sending school; an online asynchronous course; or Knower designed enrichment and skill building.	Knower designs school for you; Use our standards-aligned curriculum, which can be adjusted to match your sending school or next school placement.	Prescriptive in its nature; Custom designed with input from the treatment team; Informed by MV therapeutic modalities.	Complete homework assigned in Knower 1:1 classes; or progress through online coursework.	Continue with coursework begun in treatment, or adjust your curriculum and learning plan to best suit next steps.
FORMAT	One-to-one instruction			Small group instruction	One-to-one instruction and Align team
HOURS	Knower Academics partners with the treatment team to determine the number of hours of instruction per week, usually two to six hours.			SAVE Study group is available 6 hours per week.	Customized to goals
COST	ADDED COST Parents contract directly with Knower Academics, LLC.

 

Therademics™ Instruction

Therademics™ is customized one-to-one instruction with a qualified Knower Academics teacher. Knower administrative team may connect with the student’s sending school and/or educational consultant to develop a cohesive strtagey for academics within treatment priorities. Thus, Therademics™ may help the student stay up to speed in select classes if the school is providing curriculum; it may also be used soley as enrichment or skill building to address a specific academic concern and/or exposure to academic stressors. In cases where the school is involved and actively providing curriculum and coursework, as well as grading that work, Therademics™ class time is designed to allow students to stay up to speed with a reduced course load or to possibly begin to recover credit in one or two courses. Therademics™ may also be used to support students in online asynchronous coursework.

Therademics™ helps the student and their team explore the ideal academic environment and determine what kind of school would best fit the student. Communication focuses on connecting the clinical team, parents, teachers, and educational consultants so all can work together to chart the ideal future course for MVTC graduates.

Examples of Therademics™ Programming:

• Complete specific assignments for the student’s school.
• Earn credit or work towards earning credit.
• Stay up to speed in school coursework (typically one or two classes).
• Practice strategies to alleviate test anxiety.
• Address anxiety or avoidance associated with a specific subject.
• Build upon an area of strength by providing enrichment in a certain subject.
• Target homework avoidance.

 

Therademics for Credit™

Therademics for Credit™ establishes a potentially credit-bearing trajectory for schoolwork completed with Knower. Our teachers provide one-to-one classes and coursework for credit, while maintaining documentation of learning that is accepted for credit by most schools. In some cases, students can earn a complete credit within their stay at Mountain Valley. In other cases, students begin coursework for credit while at MVTC and continue with Knower after Mountain Valley to complete their coursework. Credit issuance is contingent on the student’s ability to complete and submit work to the standards of Knower Academy and/or the issuing institution.

Examples of Therademics for Credit™:

• Therapeutically aligned curriculum designed by Knower to complete a quarter or semester of academic coursework.
• Therapeutically aligned curriculum designed by Knower to simulate a school environment and target the relationship between a student’s anxiety and grading/assessment.

KNOW your Mind™ 

Know your Mind™ specialists are experts in designing, delivering, and supporting teaching and learning strategies for students with: learning differences or disabilities; anxiety, OCD, mental health or wellness concerns; and medical conditions that provide barriers to learning. Knower integrates the science of psychology and learning to help students manage academics together with their health and wellness needs.

Prescriptive in nature, Know your Mind™ is designed to identify and address underlying learning/anxiety issues and explore solutions that can be applied to coursework. Know your Mind™ enriches and brings a higher level of therapeutic intervention to academic work. Therefore, our specialists may schedule and invoice meetings and communication with others on the student support team. Specialists may co-teach classes, consult with medical professionals, or join therapy sessions or independent homework time in order to target areas where they can make the most impact.

Examples of Know Your Mind™ Services:

• Delving deeply into the connection between anxiety and academics for residents for whom symptoms of anxiety or OCD impact effectiveness, wellness, efficiency, or joy in academic environments.
• Integrating with teachers, therapists, and/or parents to establish prescriptive accommodations to inform best practices for next-placement schools.
• Developing specialized study & organizational systems to support targeting of treatment goals.
• Identifying, recommending, overseeing, and applying prescriptive supports and accommodations.

S.A.V.E. Study Group

Support each other. Advocate for yourself. Verify work completion. Enact executive functioning skills.

Designed in partnership with MVTC treatment team and residential faculty, SAVE Study Group offers residents a gentle, gradual reintroduction to independent academic work as well as opportunities for challenge and added support for executive functioning. SAVE helps new residents find their feet in a group academic setting, prepare for more rigorous academics, and then progress to undertake academic challenges in a supportive, empathetic and well-structured environment.

S.A.V.E. is a highly supportive, small-group academic support period. The academic support environment reinforces executive functioning skills and structured accountability for work completion. It also helps students decide whether joining academic support at their next school placement would be helpful, and gives them practice for soliciting advice and resources in an academic support environment.

Examples of S.A.V.E. Services:

• Reflect on goals and track progress.
• Practice strategies to manage OCD behaviors, avoidance, perfectionism or other aspects of academic anxiety.
• Initiate homework and verify work completion.
• Rightsize time spent on task and submit work.
• Build communication and self-advocacy strategies with teachers and peers.

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Getting Started with Knower Academics

If you think a resident could benefit from our specialized academic programming at MVTC, please contact us as soon as possible.

Therademics™ Ongoing Support for MVTC Graduates

For MVTC students who have graduated from the treatment phase, Knower Academics often continues to provide instruction and to communicate with schools and other professionals on the student’s team of support.

To learn more about how Knower can support students as they transition from MVTC and on to the next steps of their journey, please contact us.