One of the perks of enrolling your child into a residential treatment centers to overcome some of their issues is that most programs have an academic component to them. This gives parents peace of mind knowing that their child will not forgo their education while getting specialized help. In fact, many troubled teens do better academically in a residential treatment center than in a traditional school because the facility is focused on individual learning programs and special education resources, staff and programs.

Many parents wonder, “What can my teen do with a high school diploma from a residential treatment center?” The answer all depends on how the residential treatment center’s academic program is set up and what kind of accreditation it has.

Accreditation is the validation process that academic programs, from elementary schools to universities, go through to meet certain standards. A school or academic program that is accredited has gone through a peer review and evaluation to confirm that the minimum academic standards are being met. Schools must renew their accreditation regularly to ensure that they continue to put forth the effort to meet the requirements.

When looking at a residential treatment center’s academic program and specifically for the high school diploma, accreditation is a big deal. If your goal is to have your teen return to a traditional school down the road, make sure that the program’s academic credits will transfer to that school and contribute toward earning that high school diploma. If your teen plans to earn the diploma at the residential treatment center, you must make sure that the state’s board of education will recognize it so that the teen can use it to apply to colleges, trade schools and more.

To make sure that your teen will earn a useable high school diploma from a residential treatment center, do your research on the academic branch of the facility. Not all facilities can award a diploma and there needs to be some kind of accreditation in place. Many states have rules that a teen must be enrolled in the program for at least a year before being able to earn a diploma.

When your teen has earned that high school diploma from an accredited facility, he or she can use it as they would a diploma from a traditional high school. It can be used to apply for higher education or to apply for a job, for example. While some residential treatment facilities may fall short when it comes to accreditation, if you do your research and find a place that has a good academic component, your child will be able to graduate with a high school diploma and use it to find success as they transition to adulthood.