Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Will the Institute replace the assessment services provided in Outdoor Behavior Health settings?A: No. The Aspen Institute for Behavioral Assessment will not replace wilderness program services, but will provide services to youth when wilderness based therapy is contraindicated, or when other specific
needs cannot be met.
Q: Short of conducting extensive, in-depth diagnostic and assessment services, is the Institute positioned to provide short term stabilization care?
A: Residential and outdoor programs encounter adolescents whose escalating behaviors are such that acute stabilization outside of their respective placements is indicated. Following stabilization, such clients may then return to the original setting, or it may be recommended that they access alternative treatment. Traditional psychiatric hospitals often lack the ability to interface with national professional referral sources.
Q: What are the ages of the students admitted to The Aspen Institute for Behavioral Assessment?
A: We accept students ages 13-17.6; however, we will take students nearing their 18th birthday as long as they are willing to stay and complete our program.
Q: What is the average length of stay at the Institute?
A: Approximately 6 weeks. In the case of a crisis stabilization, in which the child is returning to a program, the length of stay will be significantly shorter.
Q: Next to providing comprehensive diagnostic and assessment services, does the Institute provide treatment, rehabilitative, and related services?
A: While the primary purpose of the Institute remains to observe and assess, therapeutic services, including individual, group and family therapy/consultation, chemical dependency, and education and activity/recreation will be provided. How the resident responds to individual, group, and family therapy, his/her response to the therapeutic milieu, the classroom setting and activities offered at the Institute, all become part of the overall, integrated assessments, which, in turn, provide the data for the comprehensive prescriptive protocols which is one of the key features of the Institute.
Q: What is meant by "Prescriptive Protocols?"
A: Traditional Psychosocial workups are primarily geared to assess the cognitive and affective strengths and weaknesses of an individual. Adding to such assessments, additional compressive, in-vivo data, will not only widen the diagnostic picture of the child, but also point the way of how such needs may be best addressed. Prescriptive protocols are "road-signs or road-maps" of qualitative and quantitative comprehensive services, helping the child, professional, and other caregivers to identify the best available environment for a return to a more functional lifestyle.
Q: What diagnostic and assessment services are offered at the Institute?
A: Depending on the known and emerging psycho-social issues that the child is presenting, certain "core" and "optional" diagnostic and assessment services will be offered.
| Core Assessments |
- Psychiatric Evaluation |
Optional Assessments (clinically indicated) |
- Expanded Psychological Testing |
