**Kevin Zundl (KZ):** Hi, and welcome back to the Turning Winds podcast. My name is Kevin Zundl. Turning Winds is a full continuum of care for teens who need a little bit more support clinically and academically. We're continuing to have conversations with different roles at the program.

**KZ:** And today I have with me Jared Sartell, who is Clinical Director. One of the things that I was exposed to once, and it's sat with me for a long time, is this idea of the identified patient. And I think about that, that there's an addition to everything that's going on in a teen's life, they're also looking at themselves as flawed or looking at themselves in a disadvantage amongst their peers or even in interactions with the family where, you know, they feel like they are the origin of the problems. And I think when we're looking at, you know, residential level of care, like Turning Winds, is that reduced because one, there's likely less conflict or conflict that is sort of handled in a healthier way, but they're also not the only ones working on themselves.

**KZ:** Yeah. Like that. I mean, what can, what can you share about like what you've seen in terms of when people first enter? Or, you know, I'll talk to alumni who say, you know, after five, fifteen months, it, it started to, you know, kick in and I was able to work on myself.

**KZ:** I mean, what, what can you share on that?

**Jared Sartell (JS):** I love that you're talking about this identified patient thing. That's actually a really important principle to understand. The idea that it's easy to identify a person as the problem, right?

**JS:** And as adults, it's easy for our egos to identify that as a different person. Right. And teenagers are like the most fabulous scapegoat on the planet, especially for those of us that adults that are adults tripping through raising our kids. So we use a family systems theory.

**JS:** What that means is that there are all of these different systems that bump up against each other in a family and those systems can be the people, mom, dad, sibling, child, pets. The system can also be traditions, whether they're known or subconscious traditions within the family, the roles that we might play within our family, all of those are systems. And so what we do is we help the students understand and the parents understand that they are one part of this system. And in order for the system to go well after treatment, the system needs to change.

**JS:** And so those systems that change the most about their system tend to have better long-term outcomes. And so we don't do the, hey, fix my kid thing. That's not a thing that we accept in our treatment program. If we discern that that's sort of where the parents are coming from, then we have some pretty long conversations with the parent before their child even enrolls.

**JS:** Or we say, you know what, there may be somewhere better for you. Because our model is family systems, which means you're going to as a parent, there's a good chance you're going to get homework from us for to do your own work before your kid even arrives. And so everything about our program is designed to get each member of the system to look at what they can do differently, and not necessarily out of criticism or judgment like hey you suck at this, so much as small tweaks in the system will affect every other part of the system. And so if that's, you know, and so if that's a parent that has certain patterns that disrupts or cause problems, we ask them to look at that.

**JS:** And obviously the student that's here, they're in a 24 hours a day. Everything about our model is clinical in nature, it has some meaning attached to it. And so they're in that process. You mentioned five months.

**JS:** It's funny that you say that because typically it's four or five months. On average, we see a term. And so, the first four or five months can be difficult, especially for parents because they're so hopeful and exhausted. Right?

**JS:** And they're just, when's it gonna work or whatever? Typically, if they put in their diligent effort and they trust our system and don't create problems with our system operating the way that we do. Typically, four or five months, there's a turn that happens. And the progress is not linear.

**JS:** And so the progress kind of goes like this. Boom. And it keeps doing the ups and downs, but it's on a much, you know, a much more positive or progression. And so that, so anybody that is looking at treatment, even if it's outpatient treatment, just standard therapy, their involvement is key because of that family system.

**JS:** You can't, we can take a kid here and have amazing change occur within a child here. And if they go back to the old environment, we can almost predict like the timeframe with which everything's going to go back the way that it was. And that's pretty sad. It's fairly predictable and it's also not that difficult to avoid.

**KZ:** Right. So if you're a parent and you're trying to navigate a complex mental health situation with your teen, I highly encourage you to call Turning Winds at 1-800-845-1380 where they can listen and help you understand your options. There's also a wealth of resources available to you at turningwinds.com. See you next time.