The staff at Midwest Center for Youth & Families have dedicated themselves to helping adolescents and children from across the United States overcome complex mental illness for the past 27 years. This facility, which has locations in Kouts and Valparaiso, offers residential therapeutic services to males aged 12-18 and females aged 10-18.
Dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), a psychotherapy method developed by American psychologist Marsha Linehan, is the cornerstone of the treatment that clients receive at Midwest Center. DBT treatment helps patients develop their mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness, emotion regulation, and distress tolerance capabilities.
Midwest Center seeks to help its clients thrive in every area of their lives. Since clients can be in our facility as determined by the Admissions/Clinical/Medical team, they won’t be able to regularly attend their home school.
To ensure that students can stay on course academically, Midwest Center features an on-site, Cognia-accredited school called Midwest Academy. For over 20 years, Midwest Academy, which operates year round, has helped students from sixth to 12th grade continue their studies during their stay at Midwest Center.
Kerrie Lolkema, director of education for Midwest Academy, has been with Midwest Center since 2008. She has seen firsthand how Midwest Academy helps set Midwest Center apart from other facilities of its kind.
"At Midwest Academy, we meet our students where they are," Lolkema said. "Not only in the mental and physical sense, but also in the educational sense. If we have a ninth grader who reads on a sixth grade level, we help them engage with the ninth grade reading material while helping them read it at the sixth grade level. We want to make sure that these kids do not fall behind, so we work really hard with each student's school to ensure that we are offering them the core classes they need."
Midwest Academy’s designation as a Cognia-accredited school indicates that it upholds the rigorous standards of Cognia, a global non-profit education organization. The school ensures that students adhere to the Core 40 curriculum, the course of study students must take in order to graduate with a high school diploma in Indiana.
Midwest Academy has a team of five educators who teach communal classes that comprise multiple grade levels. Each class typically has about 15-18 students and groups them by grade or, in some cases, skill level.
Although the oldest students are typically in 12th grade, Midwest Academy does offer recently graduated high school seniors their choice of college prep classes and classes that will complement a career in one of the trades.
Since students hail from all over the country, Midwest Academy staff work hard to ensure that the education each pupil receives at Midwest Academy is congruent with their home school’s curriculum.
Incoming clients take an assessment test to determine their capabilities and even test out of some classes if possible. Lolkema also connects with each students’ school counselor to determine which courses they will need to take at Midwest Academy. She notes if any of the students have an individualized education plan (IEP) or a 504 education plan that requires special academic accommodations. With this streamlined system, students can begin their studies at Midwest Academy within 48 hours of being admitted.
"We have the opportunity to assess each child's needs and construct a plan for them accordingly,” Mark Myers, another Midwest Academy instructor, said. “By doing this, we are able to help a child catch up, maintain their place, or even get ahead in their coursework."
Midwest Academy supports students’ academic success by allowing them to transfer the credits they earn while at Midwest Center to their home school when they leave the facility.
Midwest Academy also offers summer school, which gives students who might lack credits the chance to make up for lost time. The school puts students who are in need of credit recovery through a course offered by Edmentum, an online education platform. This course allows students to meet all of the state’s educational requirements in a finite amount of time.
Midwest Academy also offers summer school, thus enabling students to complete some courses before they even return to their home school.
“I want to provide students with structure and stability, and in so doing, help develop their love of learning,” Margaret “Peggy” Portelli, an educator at Midwest Center said.
The Midwest Academy staff, who are all DBT-trained and licensed, work closely with Midwest Center’s clinical staff to ensure that DBT methods are folded into the curriculum. The instructors take opportunities to draw parallels between the coursework and the DBT strategies their students are learning in therapy.
For instance, an instructor leading a language arts class might ask students to analyze the interpersonal effectiveness of a character in a novel that the class is reading. This strategy complements the students’ therapy and can help them change the way they approach interpersonal situations in their own lives.
"I make it my goal to celebrate every child in my classroom,” Allison Boudreaux, a Midwest Center educator, said. “From the grandest achievements to the smallest victories, I believe that every moment, whether it’s academic, social, or emotional, deserves recognition. While I’m dedicated to educating, I’m equally passionate about being my students' number one cheerleader. That’s the impact I aim to have every single day."
Lolkema and her team want to do more than merely help students collect credits they need to graduate. They want to change the way students approach their education and help them excel in their studies long after they leave Midwest Academy.
"Many of the kids who come here find school to be challenging," Lolkema said. "We acknowledge that fact as we set them up for success and help them feel more confident about attending class and doing their schoolwork. Hopefully, they will be able to take that confidence with them when they leave Midwest Center and return to their home school. We offer a rigorous curriculum, so they don't have to worry about falling behind. They may even get a leg-up on their coursework. Each of our teachers puts the kids first and wants to push them forward into success."
You can learn more about Midwest Academy and Midwest Center’s many other services by visiting midwest-center.com.