Anchor Skills
Residential Skills Program for Adolescents
Building Stability, Regulation, and Daily Functioning for Long-Term Success
What Anchor Skills Is
Anchor Skills is our core therapeutic and behavioral skills program designed specifically for
adolescents in residential treatment who struggle with emotional regulation, impulsivity,
social challenges, executive dysfunction, and neurodivergent patterns of behavior.
It integrates multiple modalities—including behavioral skills coaching, CBT principles,
DBT-informed strategies, and Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA)—to build the foundational
abilities teens need to stabilize in care, progress in therapy, and succeed once they return home.
This is a functional, structured, developmentally appropriate model that directly supports
adolescents with co-occurring mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, OCD traits,
trauma responses, and behavioral dysregulation.
Why Anchor Skills Matters in Residential Treatment
Many teens enter residential care without the behavioral and functional capacity to make use of traditional therapy. They struggle with:
- Emotional volatility
- Avoidance and shutdown
- Chaos in daily routines
- Trouble following expectations
- Low frustration tolerance
- Lack of accountability
- Impulsivity or explosive behaviors
Without foundational skills, even strong clinical interventions often fail to transfer into daily life.
Anchor Skills bridges that gap.
It ensures that emotional, cognitive, and behavioral progress is practical, repeatable, and sustainable—both inside and outside of treatment.
Core Focus Areas
1. Emotional & Behavioral Regulation
- Identifying emotions and internal cues
- Building coping skills and self-regulation tools
- Applying strategies during escalation
- Increasing frustration tolerance
- Reducing explosive or avoidant behaviors
2. Executive Functioning & Daily Structure
- Routine building and schedule adherence
- Task initiation, follow-through, and completion
- Organization, planning, and prioritization
- Sustaining effort and reducing dependency on prompts
3. Social & Interpersonal Skills
- Communication that reduces conflict and misunderstanding
- Social cue interpretation and perspective-taking
- Repairing relationships appropriately
- Maintaining healthy boundaries and respecting others’ space
4. Insight, Accountability & Problem-Solving
- Honest self-reporting
- Accepting limits and consequences
- Flexible thinking
- Replacing avoidance with problem-solving approaches
5. Integration With ABA & Behavioral Supports
Anchor Skills incorporates ABA-informed strategies where appropriate, especially for teens with neurodevelopmental needs:
- Functional behavior assessments
- Skill-based interventions
- Reinforcement systems
- Environmental structure
- Safety and behavioral support plans
6. Treatment Integration & Medication Management
Anchor Skills is coordinated with:
- Psychiatry and medication management
- Individual and family therapy
- Academic supports
- Nursing and clinical oversight
This ensures a unified, consistent, and developmentally appropriate treatment environment.
How Anchor Skills Is Delivered
Anchor Skills is embedded throughout the residential setting, not limited to scheduled therapy hours. It is delivered through:
- Daily milieu routines
- Skills groups
- 1:1 coaching moments
- ABA-informed interventions
- Crisis stabilization and de-escalation
- School integration
- Evening and weekend programming
- Family therapy and caregiver coaching
Every staff member is trained to reinforce Anchor Skills, creating a cohesive, predictable therapeutic environment.
Why Families & Professionals Trust Anchor Skills
Parents and providers frequently ask:
“Will these gains hold once the child returns home?”
Anchor Skills directly addresses this by focusing on the transferable skills that truly matter:
- Emotional stability
- Behavioral consistency
- Communication and accountability
- Executive functioning
- Adaptability
- Safety and regulation at home and school
It reduces the likelihood of re-hospitalization and gives families tools they can use long after discharge.
The Goal of Anchor Skills
To equip adolescents with the emotional, behavioral, and functional skill set they need to thrive in
residential care—and to succeed at home, in school, and in their communities after discharge.
