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The holiday season brings about many struggles for parents of Oxbow students. Reality hits home as some parents realize that their sons are not in the place, therapeutically speaking, that would allow them to go home to be with their families over Christmas.  This has been a struggle for one of the families with whom…

This last mid October Saturday, while hauling in the last two loads of hay for the year with five of the Oxbow boys, we stopped in between loads with the boys to grab a doughnut at the local bakery. The boys were so excited to get the doughnuts they had earned. Two older couples arrived…

Oxbow’s Executive Director Shawn Brooks have been invited to present a seminar at the national convention of the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs (NATSAP). The invitation comes on the heels of a presentation called “Boys Will Be Boys?” made at local and regional NATSAP conferences. In that presentation, Shawn taught other professionals at troubled…

For the past several months Oxbow staff has been working with a young man on completing his full disclosure.  He was initially highly resistant to disclose, although had dabbled in it.  As the items on his disclosure were altered by the week, it was clear that he was not being fully accountable for his sexual…

Shwan Brooks, Oxbow’s Executive Director, received this letter this month from the parent of one of our graduates. We gratefully share it’s contents with our blog readers. To protect this family’s privacy, their names have been ommitted or abbreviated. Setember 7, 2011 Dear Shawn, It’s been a month since ** graduation from Oxbow, and I…

My day started at 5:30 this morning. We were scheduled for a video shoot at 8 a.m. at Oxbow’s East Campus equine facility. This was to be part three of a series of videos introducing DJ – the abandoned horse Tony and Brita and two of the Oxbow students were rehabilitating. Near death when they…

Today was a day that makes all the stressful and frustrating days at work worth it. Today one of my clients successfully transitioned from our program. He had been here for just over a year. When I first met with him, he had little hope and displayed hardly any emotion. He seemed jaded from the…

Sometimes our work can seem difficult, frustrating, and sometimes downright impossible. Then one day as we confront a student he reaches down inside himself and finds all that knowledge that we have been trying to teach him for months and it makes your heart soar. Every impossible moment is absolutely worth it. This happened to…

On June 29th, we had our monthly bonus activity – the one we have when none of the students have acted out.  After several different activities were thrown on the table we decided on playing softball.  The admissions team, mentors and students went over to Moroni to the soft ball fields.  When everyone arrived at the…

     Yesterday on the news there was a story about family vacationing in Southern Utah. They were around a creek that, due to the high run off this year in Utah, was more like a river of fast moving water. The news report showed a water fall about 15 feet high. The water going over…