Embark Behavioral Health Creates Specialized Program to Improve Adolescent Boy Mental Health


“Boys do their best work when teachers establish an authentic purpose and meaningful, real-life connections,” which is what The Forge School encourages.

Embark Behavioral Health recently opened The Forge School – a state-of-the-art residential treatment program in Benton, Tennessee – developed in response to the increasing rates of mental health issues in adolescent boys.

According to recent research, the rate at which young Americans took their own lives reached unprecedented levels in 2017, driven by a sharp rise in suicides among teenage boys, said Joe Barnard, the program’s founder and executive director. He went on to cite statistics from the Journal of American Medical Association, which revealed that year alone, suicide claimed the lives of over 5,000 males between ages 15- 24.

Embark Division President, Chris Perkins, said of The Forge:

“This is the first program of its kind to not only address the unique needs of boys and young men but has been designed to accommodate both long and short-term care needs and want to utilize their healthcare insurance to pay for treatment. No matter what the need, The Forge provides the same world-class service that families have come to expect from an Embark treatment program.

Focused on the emotional and neurobiological needs of teenage boys (14-17), The Forge School combines individual and family counseling with educational rigor and extraordinary outdoor experiences to help build resilience. Barnard said of the program, “Our holistic educational experience with engaging, practical life skills help facilitate a deeper understanding of each student’s core sense of self resulting in positive behavioral change.” Dr. Michael Gurian, a family counselor, founder of The Gurian Institute and a leading researcher in gender-specific learning style differences, as well as a co-developer of The Forge School academic and clinical program, stated that “Boys do their best work when teachers establish an authentic purpose and meaningful, real-life connections.”

The Forge School encourages students to continually test their skills and to push forward regardless of perceived success or failure, which builds resilience and grit. To learn more about The Forge, go to forgeschoolrtc.com/ or contact: 866-520-3867.

About Embark

Embark Behavioral Health is an award-winning and leading network of behavioral health treatment centers, for young people, that is dedicated to reversing the current all-time highs in adolescent anxiety, depression and suicide to all-time lows by 2028. The company is headquartered in Tempe, Arizona and operates 19 programs in 13 states. Embark has a proven, internationally validated outcomes platform, the industry’s highest quality of care and safety standards, and a unique and complementary continuum of programs including residential treatment, wilderness therapy, partial hospital, in-home, virtual and outpatient services.

For more information about Embark or our treatment programs, visit: embarkbh.com.

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