Latest News

Staying Connected to Family and Community Life

It’s never easy for a student to leave his or her family, and including that network in our treatment approach is fundamental. Students who are a fit for NSI Academy have usually exhausted all community level services and need to be removed from at-risk situations in their current environment. As a part of treatment, NSI Academy takes very seriously the responsibility of keeping a kid’s parents, teachers, multi-disciplinary teams (MDTs) and other individuals involved in the treatment plans. Family visits provide an important opportunity for our students to practice new skills and to stay connected with the family. Visits also provide opportunities to identify areas of concern and to provide professional support to the student and family. If it weren’t for this effort to include a student’s family/network, a student would likely have trouble integrating back into family and community life.

I wanted to highlight some of the services that we provide for the families/networks of our students.   

• Transportation:  
  • NSI will help arrange or provide transportation to and from a family’s home town for a family visit.  In addition, we make accommodations for families to stay in Sheridan overnight.
  • NSI will provide, when necessary, student transportation for home visits, court hearings, MDT meetings and/or school conferences.  
  • NSI is also pursuing plans to provide transportation services across the state for non-NSI students.  Transportation to and from facilities for meetings, court appearances or even for placement continues to be an issue for many areas of the state.  So, in an effort to put our expertise and practice to good use, we’re exploring the possibility of providing juvenile transportation services across the state.
•  Visitation:
  • NSI encourages our students to stay in contact with their families, by telephone, mail or in-person visits that can be arranged either on campus or at the student’s home depending on the situation, treatment goals and supervision in the home.
  • Home visits are possible after 30 days from admission and dependent on the treatment plan goals and available supervision in the home community.  These visits take a variety of forms.   NSI provides transportation to and from home on the scheduled weekends.  During the home visit, our staff members ensure that services are available to work through any issues or concerns that the student and/or family may encounter during the visit.
  • We will work with families to arrange special visits, such as family events or emergencies, if needed at other times. We do our best to balance visitation needs while minimizing disruption to students’ other activities and programming.
• Video Conferencing: 
  
  • NSI recently has acquired high resolution video conferencing capabilities which will be beneficial for those students, parents and stakeholders who are from outside the Sheridan area.  We also use lower resolution video to stay in touch when high resolution is not available. This has been a huge asset to our students, their families and MDTs.
• Phone Calls/Mail:
  
  • We encourage phone calls with family. We have found that our family work is much stronger when contacts occur as a team, especially in the early stages of the student’s program.
  • Students are encouraged to exchange letters and packages with family members as approved by the student’s placing court, treatment team and NSI.
•  Academics/School:
  • Our Education Department will be in contact with the student’s home school district on a regular basis throughout their stay. Since NSI is an accredited school, students are given the opportunity not only to “catch up” academically but also to excel. Students are challenged to set realistic but high academic achievement goals, with strong value placed on receiving a high school diploma. One-to-one staff assistance is available as needed for Special Education and specific behavior needs. Normative emphasizes the value of student education and maintains a strong focus on students’ active participation in all aspects of their learning process.

<<Back to Latest News