Our students may face a spectrum of issues including: anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, ADD/ADHD, substance abuse, oppositional defiance, impulsiveness, emotional deregulation, lack of understanding consequence, and anger and/or attachment issues. Other issues may be loneliness, meaninglessness, and confusion about their place in the world. Our experience is that all of our students also come with a great skill set of positive attributes, and simply need the resources to overcome the obstacles keeping them from realizing their potential. For more information, please visit our Student Profile page.

Yes. We will need to gather complete information from the student’s therapist and/or educational consultant before a position is offered. This helps ensure that our school is a proper fit for you.

Our school takes a very personalized approach that is dependent on each girl’s goals and progress. While there is a minimum length of stay of 12 months, many of our students have chosen to stay two, three, or four years, or until they graduate. Upon graduation, students are eligible for a high school diploma from the state of West Virginia. If a diploma from another school is a necessity, we can work with other school districts to transfer credits.

We want to work with you and your family to ensure the best way to come together with positive and healthy interaction. We create an individualized plan for each student; her counselor and academic advisor creates this. The plan is based on her and her family’s needs and situation.

Based on the personal work your daughter accomplishes while here, your daughter’s counselor will determine when she is prepared to make a supervised call to family members; calls to friends may follow. Students have supervised access to telephones for these approved calls, and cell phones are permitted on a limited basis as part of some students treatment plan created with family. .  . Our Admissions Agreement includes a place for you to list which relatives and friends your daughter should and should not be allowed to contact. Our counselors or residential advisor inspect all mail and inappropriate items will be removed (e.g., excessive amounts of candy or food, inappropriate reading material).

Our students have a very full and diverse residential life. They engage in many different weekly outdoor adventures throughout the year, such as mountain biking, kayaking, and hiking through various partnerships insured by professional outfitters. Additionally, our students may participate in fun activities such as roller skating, ice skating, laser tag, movies, visits to a nearby water park, paintballing, zip lining, fishing, and dance (these are subject to change based on weather and our students’ interests).

Performances, concerts, plays, exhibits and festivals are monthly activities at Carnegie Hall and Greenbrier Valley Theatre in nearby Lewisburg.  We’ve also organized field trips to Washington, D.C. and locations in Virginia. Service projects are regular activities that allow students to participate in local volunteer efforts: helping with meals at local family support centers, home repairs for low-income families, and pitching in community beautification efforts. We provide a rich, exciting and active schedule of activities in which students have opportunities to engage and learn. Please visit our Student Life section to learn more

SAT prep is provided in four ways:

As a college preparatory high school, we provide a college prep class that consists in part of ACT/SAT preparation, individualized tutoring with a live instructor as an extracurricular activity, ACT/SAT study materials for students and arrange time for students if they choose to purchase an on-line study program. We offer the PSAT test on campus and provide transportation to ACT/SAT test centers in the local area. Our Academic Department provides exceptional college planning and we work with each student’s Educational Consultant (if applicable).

Students drum daily. They participate in group exercise that varies in ability level: running, walking, Pilates, yoga, and free weights. Seasonal sports such as snow skiing/snowboarding, volleyball, basketball, soccer, and softball are fun activities both on and off campus.

In many of our interactions in the greater community, , boys/young men are present. As with all of our off-campus events, students are always accompanied by staff.

We encourage students to make their own decisions regarding spirituality and religion, and students can attend a nearby nondenominational church. We honor and respect the diversity that different faiths and practices bring to our community.

Our students volunteer at the  local women’s shelter, retirement homes, food pantries, Habitat for Humanity. We have partnered in the past with Mountain Mission School in Grundy, VA, which was created in 1921 as a safe haven for Ethiopian refugees. Greenbrier Academy has had cultural exchanges with the school so that our students have an opportunity to experience very different views and lifestyles without the normal cost and time of world travel. A number of girls and staff have completed several service projects in Ghana, Africa and Nicaragua. We offer weekly service trips to a Nicaraguan barrio multiple times throughout the year to give the opportunity to participate to each student. These are just a few examples of various service oriented activities our students are involved in.

Greenbrier Academy is located along the Greenbrier River in southeastern West Virginia. Our privately owned contiguous wooded areas provide the perfect, quiet setting for our students to focus on healing. Constructed at the turn of the  century, the site has gone through an extensive two-year renovation. This historic facility has state-of-the-art safety and security systems. The surrounding quiet community is very close-knit and we have quality relationships with the local agencies and authorities. The 140 acres of beautiful campus provides the ideal location conducive to creativity and growth.

When using the computers in our schoolhouse, a faculty member closely supervises small numbers of students, and our computers have passwords known only to key staff. While we want to make sure that students are kept up-to-date with information technology, safety and proper usage are paramount.

Your daughter has the opportunity to talk privately with her counselor for an average of  90 minutes per week. The length of each session may vary depending on the focus of therapy and what is going on that week. We meet in family unit groups three times each week and one community meeting with everyone present to further explore the dynamic nature of relationships and how these relationships play out in students’ lives and within our community. Families have one therapeutic call per week for up to an hour. As each girl progresses and communicates her commitment, she is allowed social calls.

Our full time Medical Coordinator, Dinah Palmer, is an LPN that distributes medications daily to the students. She maintains impeccable communication with our contracted psychiatrist and each family. We continuously do staff training on medicine distribution, policies, and procedures for students who take medications after business hours. Our Medical Coordinator also establishes health baselines for the girls upon their arrival at Greenbrier Academy. She works closely with each young woman to ensure that she is developing healthy lifestyles to strengthen and care for her body.

When any member of a family struggles, everyone in the system is affected. When possible, it is our recommendation that siblings are involved in the family workshops. Your daughter’s therapist will discuss the ways in which the whole family has been impacted, and assist you in deciding the right time for siblings to participate in the life changing workshops.

We want our students to realize that self-expression should not be limited to their attire. By providing a dress code, students learn how to express themselves through their actions. The dress code allows our students the individuality and flexibility to wear comfortable and neat clothing that is appropriate for the various activities they participate in. For more information, please see our Dress Code.