At Hope Ranch, we believe every girl is someone's daughter in need of hope. That is our foundation: HOPE. We believe every student comes to Hope Ranch with incredible potential. Our program is built to help each student discover her "uniqueness" and unlock her "potential" and to help her make the types of choices and engage in the kinds of actions and behaviors that will lead her to success.
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With a foundation of HOPE and building on our four cornerstones, our staff of professionals helps girls progress through a journey of five levels that rewards progressive improvement and achievement in areas of education, life skills, accountability, responsibility, self-confidence, community living, work chores, attitude, and respect. Residents learn to accept personal responsibility for their emotional, intellectual, physical and spiritual growth in a positive, healing environment.
The Four Cornerstones of the Hope Ranch
Hope Ranch is a therapeutic boarding school for adolescent girls offering hope and healing through therapy, academics, spirituality, and residential life.
1) The Therapeutic cornerstone/program fosters healing of dysfunctions, addictions, relationships, and families. The desired outcome for this cornerstone is to foster emotional and physical health and to heal hurting relationships. -more-
2) The Academic cornerstone/program offers full educational opportunities for students of all academic abilities. The desired outcome for this cornerstone is to foster enlivened intellects, achieve appropriate academic success, and foster life-long learning. -more-
Star Meadows Academy is Hope Ranch's accredited school and is supervised by certified teachers.
3) The Spirituality cornerstone includes faithfulness, obedience, and love. These three virtues are our model for day-to-day relationships with God and each other. The desired outcome for this cornerstone is to foster a life of Christian integrity. -Statement of Faith & more-
4) The Residential life cornerstone/program creates an environment for developing healthy boundaries and relationships. This is achieved by providing safe and secure living, dining and residential facilities and environment. Nutritional and recreational therapy include a well-balanced diet and supervised recreational activities in our outdoor education program. The needs for clothing, food, shelter, and quality medical care are provided for all students. The desired outcome for this cornerstone is to foster healthy bodies, minds, and relationships. -more-
Outdoor Education Program
Residents participate in cross-country skiing, swimming, fishing, biking, snow-shoeing, and other outdoor activities which promote well-rounded development of body, mind and spirit. As a part of many of these activities, they also participate in experiential learning projects. Some projects in previous years have included work in Glacier National Park, frog counts for the United States Forest Service and trail clean-up with the Bob Marshall Foundation. These activities build relationships, teach life-long learning, create better citizens for the future and build teamwork.
The Journey
Embracing these cornerstones is Hope Ranch/Star Meadows Academy's unique Journey of Hope and Christian Integrity. It is a "curriculum" and every student travel this "Journey." Though each girl will work on and accomplish a "core curriculum," each student's individual "Journey" will be unique to her. Each girl will develop a deep understanding of relationships, respect, well-being and learn how to live a life of maturity. This "Journey" will lead them along pathways that lead to emotional and spiritual healing, academic learning, increasing responsibilities and privileges, and a deepened commitment to self, family, and community. On this "Journey," every Hope Ranch girl will travel through five levels:
- Level 1
- The focus of this level is honesty, openness, self-care, and acceptance. Students are introduced to the routines, guidelines, expectations, and community functioning of Hope Ranch life.
- Level 2
- The focus of this level is personal awareness, self-exploration, development of a more solid sense of self, future orientation, effective coping skills, awareness of others,and engagement in personal/spiritual growth.Students begin to engage in the process of self-exploration and personal/spiritual growth.
- Level 3
- The focus of this level is empathy, relationships, and family. As students begin to develop more of an awareness of others, they will further exhibit an understanding of how their behavior impacts others.
- Level 4
- The focus of this level is personal integrity, community involvement, sanctification and/or well-being. Students help others through active community leadership - expressed through having integrity in all that they do.
- Level 5
- The focus of this level is reunification and transitioning in a very positive and integrated way. This is the final phase before graduation, during which students complete a realistic transition plan for the future and put closure on their experience at Hope Ranch.
Students must complete each level before advancing to the next. Advancement through the program is challenging. It requires that each student: (a) satisfactorily complete the curriculum requirements for that particular level; (b) satisfactorily complete the additional level requirements that focus on her uniqueness and individuality; (c) demonstrate that she has incorporated the responsibilities and principles of that level into her behaviors, actions and relationships with her family and in the Hope Ranch community; (d) undergo both a staff and a peer review; and, (e) be approved by her therapeutic team.
Each student's "Journey" is tailored just for her and very individualized. The time spent on the completion of each level is based on her internalization of the focused skills and responsibilities.
The purpose of the "Journey" is to teach skills, techniques, expertise and attitudes that will lead each young woman to a life of integrity, maturity, honesty, emotional and spiritual healing, academic learning, accountability, respectfulness, and acceptance of increasing responsibilities.
Read about Discipline & Behavior Changes
A "typical" weekday in the life of a Hope Ranch girl.