Tennessee
When your teen is participating in destructive and volatile behavior, you might consider alternative or therapeutic boarding schools as a way to help your teen establish a new identity and develop coping skills for facing the challenges of life. Therapeutic boarding schools offer teens a range of services, from academic help to counseling sessions, designed to emphasize getting your child back on track. HelpYourTeenNow offers free counseling sessions to parents interested in exploring the options of alternative and therapeutic boarding schools for their at-risk teens.
Tennessee Regulatory Laws
The Division of Health Care Facilities via the Department of Health is responsible for regulating the quality of care facilities throughout Tennessee as well as licensing standards.
Accreditation is optional for private schools, as is registration. All church-related private schools must meet accreditation standards set by one of several Christian school associations (TCA 49-50-801). In Tennessee, private schools are categorized by the Board of Education as I, II, III, IV, V, VI and VII to reflect the different standards that the school complies with (TCA 49-50-801 and TCA 49-50-801). Teachers in Category I and VII schools must meet state licensing and certification standards, while teachers of Category II and II must only meet the standards set forth by their school. Category IV and V teachers must have a bachelor’s degree. For curriculums, Category I, II and VII schools must meet the state’s graduation requirements (State Board of Education Rule No. 0520-7-2). Where testing is concerned, each category school is subject to a range of standards, from testing with public school requirements (State
Board of Education Rule No. 0520-7-2) to no testing requirements (State Board of Education Rule No. 0520-7-2).
Reference: http://www2.ed.gov/admins/comm/choice/regprivschl/regprivschl.pdf
11.3 percent of children between 4 and 17 diagnosed per year
(2007 study, Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2007 Study).
http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/prevalence.html
Pregnancy rates for adolescents between the ages of 15 and 19 in Tennessee were between 50.6 and 64.2 per 1,000 women
(Center for Disease Control and Prevention 2009 Study).
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6006a6.htm?s_cid=mm6006a6_e%0d%0a
Tennessee ranks 21st in the nation for suicide in individuals age 15-24. In 2010, there were 104 deaths with a crude rate of 12.0.
(CDC’s WISQARS website “Fatal Injury Reports, 2010” http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/index.html;)
http://www.suicidology.org/c/document_library/get_file?folderId=262&name=DLFE-629.pdf
Approximately 8.6 percent of adolescents in Tennessee, age 12-17, experiment with illicit drugs monthly. Just over 4.3% regularly use marijuana and 5.4 percent use other types of illicit drugs. Around 12.6% of Tennessee teens used alcohol in the past month, while 6.6% engaged in binge drinking.
(State Report, 2009, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.)
http://www.samhsa.gov/data/States_In_Brief_Reports.aspx
In 2008, the U.S. Department of Justice reported the following juvenile arrest rates for Tennessee: 318 arrests for violent crime, 1,348 arrests for property crime, 574 arrests for drug abuse and 115 arrests for weapons violations.
(Washington, DC: Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2009).
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/228479.pdf
Tennessee had an 86 percent statewide high school graduation rate for the 2010-2011 school year.
(U.S. Department of Education, Graduation Rates 2010-2011)
http://www.governing.com/gov-data/high-school-graduation-rates-by-state.html
Summary
As a parent advocate group, we understand the difficulty in making a life-changing decision on your teen’s behalf. Teens who undergo major physical and mental changes, who may also be dealing with substance abuse, are the perfect candidates for therapeutic and alternative boarding schools. HelpYourTeenNow can match you and your teen up with a program in your area that has a proven success record and works hard to boost your teen’s self-esteem via a treatment plan that works. Not all schools and programs are alike, so call HelpYourTeenNow to access our vast network of resources from parents and professionals who know what it takes to turn at-risk teens into confident, independent adults.
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