During the first school year at Greentree Village, Pyramid Healthcare reports that progress is being made with the teenagers who are participating in the program.
“You’re not going to see a drastic change in scoring on the PSSA test right away,” said Pyramid Director of Education John Dibert. “That is something that over the span of time you will see improvement. What you will see is when a child returns to their home school district, they are more focused and better equipped to learn in the classroom.”
One of the programs that the counselors at Greentree Village have implemented to bring structure to the young men is the level system. If you participate in group therapy, you reach a level. If you behave well, you reach a level. If you don’t disrupt class, you reach another level.
“We reward the kids when they reach certain levels,” said Dibert. “We have people donate tickets to Penn State games. If the kids reach a performance level, they can attend. If they don’t reach the level, they stay home.”
There are many incentives for the students at Greentree Village to perform. There is a student of the week for good/improved grades, attendance and attitude, most improved group person for active participation and giving appropriate feedback.
“It is going to take some time to see what is being accomplished,” said Dibert. “There takes time for the students and staff to get acclimated to each other.”
One of the places that Greentree has taken the students for a tour of is the Army Reserve Center.
“We are encouraged when the students go to the Army Reserve Centers and visit the recruiters,” said Dibert. “The military is one way that they can see that there is a whole world out there, not just the friends that they have who help drag back to the life they used to have.”
When Greentree Village opened, there were many complaints from residents of Bald Eagle about the facility being placed there. Following one school year, it isn’t as noisy, but the residents are still not happy about the location facility.
“All I ask is you let us do our thing,” said Dibert. “It will take time, but the kids of the Tyrone area benefit from our program. The school districts can’t offer mental health services and we work with them to bring a therapeutic education to the students that need it. There is nothing that makes me more excited than when I receive an invitation to graduation from one of our students. Something like that makes the job we do worth while.”
Following the first year, Dibert has been happy with how the school term went.
“We have a good relationship with the Tyrone School District,” said Dibert. “The goals we had for the first year we met and exceeded. We are placing students back in the Tyrone School District. We want to see kids taking part in extracurricular activities. We have a new school building. We are building a new cafeteria. I really believe that there is a higher power guiding this program. We accomplished a lot in a very short period of time. I would like to see successful PSSA scores in the future. The students at Greentree are receiving the tools to be successful in their education and in society. I wish more districts were as inventive and creative as Tyrone.”
