In order to see young women develop into Godly, responsible adults, they need a safe place to practice making choices and changes.
What We Do
At Hope Ranch, we believe teens need to be taught how to make good decisions, and to face natural and logical consequences for those decisions. This allows them to choose to be a Godly, responsible young adult. It is the hope and the focus of our program that the skill, ability and willingness to choose what is right, for the right reasons, will follow every student beyond our program. We see it as our responsibility to create a structure in which our students can practice choices, and then face the results of those choices – good and bad - within a safe learning environment. The key is holding each student accountable for her actions. For students to learn personal responsibility, they will need to face both positive and negative consequences for choices they make.
We accept our students with unconditional love and respect. As adults and as role models, Hope Ranch staff has both the desire and the capability to understand and value the “uniqueness” of each student, to demonstrate appropriate tolerance and grace, and to model the very actions/behaviors we expect from them – while holding them accountable for their decisions. We recognize that each student is blessed with incredible potential, and teaching each young woman how to realize and unlock her potential is the key to her personal growth and success.
To help facilitate this, we utilize Process (or, Family) Groups and a 5-level system with privileges attached to it. The Process (Family) Groups consist of students and staff who are together for the entire time of a student’s enrollment – living, sharing, working, and playing together. Peers and staff alike encourage, counsel, confront, advise, help, console, cheerlead, and assess each other in an atmosphere of trust and respect that builds rapport, caring, and understanding. Each student has the freedom to make choices about her behavior (within safe limits), and it is her “family” that holds her accountable, deals with the behavioral situations, and helps her learn how to make healthy, positive and appropriate choices. The "family" staff members, working in partnership and collaboration with each student's parents, also form her Treatment Team. Knowing how to make good choices and choosing to make those good choices are lifetime skills that result from her “Journey of Hope and Christian Integrity.”
Therefore, at Hope Ranch, we do not believe that “punishment” or “control” will lead to lasting positive results in our students. To establish appropriate expectations for our students' behavior, it is first necessary to understand that we do not control our students' behavior directly. They control their own behavior. All we can do is to enable them (to "teach" them) to use their own amazing abilities to the maximum and make positive, responsible choices.
There is only one kind of Discipline……. that is Self-Discipline!
Hope Ranch does not have an absolute obedience-oriented program. If that were so, compliance with commands would be the primary focus, and we would be nothing more than a jail or boot camp. In such settings, teens learn to put up with rules and make surface adjustments as required without ever really dealing with inner beliefs and attitudes. Avoidance of punishment or humiliation then becomes the primary motivator for change. “Control” of a teen’s behavior - "telling" a teen what to do or what not to do - is the focus of that type of program.
Demanding absolute obedience can be, for a number of reasons, a dangerous control mechanism to use to manipulate a student’s actions.
· First, it is unreliable because, at any time, a student may choose to be disobedient and it will fail.
· Second, a demand for obedience causes students to listen to an “outside voice” to make adjustments in their behavior rather than being self-directed.
· Finally, a demand for obedience does not "teach" how to make decisions.
Punishment (an artificial consequence created in response to an inappropriate behavior) does not work because it is reactive in nature (not proactive) and it is based on failure (something negative or wrong must be done in order to bring punishment into use). While it may result in short-lived behavioral change if it is harsh enough and immediate enough, punishment rarely produces long-term appropriate change in behavior.
· It removes the focus of both the “punisher” and “punished” from the behavior in question to the punishment.
· It focuses anger on the “punisher.”
· Punishment-induced behavior extinguishes rapidly.
· It traps the “punisher” into maintaining the punishment schedule.
· It does not "teach" accountability.
· It denies a student the right to experience the real consequences of their actions.