Review of La Europa Academy

4 years ago

PLEASE READ!!!

PLEASE READ!!!

I am a former student of La Europa and I personally can't recommend this place. I believe in my heart that the people running this treatment center have noting but good intentions but their execution is extremely poor. They have a very weak understanding of working with adolescents and their methods have potentially harmful outcomes.

To any parents reading this, unless you are in immediate danger of losing your child, I think it is best that you find a qualified compassionate family therapist in your area and start working on your issues at home. I am a huge believer in the power of a good, kind, and compassionate therapist. Most teens act out because they don't feel loved, cared for and safe. Learning to create that environment for your teen is so important!! And no offense but in many cases I see sending your child off to treatment as lazying parenting. Typically our issues and ways of coping stem form our parents, so working as a family is key.

All this being said, if your teen is suicidal or involved in using dangerous narcotics and their is a immediate possibility of losing your child, then by all mean send them into treatment. I do not believe that residential treatment centers are a good option necessarily, but of course it is better you have your child in treatment and alive then not in treatment and dead.

Do be honest with yourself though, is your child really in danger or are you just a paranoid parent? My mom's paranoia is what got me put into La Europa and I can promise you that discovering the tools, with a good therapist at home, to heal my family would have saved me from having to do years of therapy just to get over the stress of having been placed in residential treatment.

Also note that this is NOT a therapeutic boarding school. Yes there is school, yes there is therapy, but this is a residential treatment center which is different. Some parents don't seem to understand this.

Out of all the people I know that went to La Europa I have one friend that is grateful for her experience here, but that one friend is someone who was in immediate danger and needed to be placed somewhere where she could have 24 hour supervision. I will give La Europa two stars instead of one for this reason.

Edit: I just took a look at the La Europa website and I am feeling extremely disappointed in La Europa at the moment. Their website is extremely dishonest. It makes this place look like some kind of super fun art camp when in reality it is much more Girl Interrupted then fun art camp. Really really misleading.