Forget the fancy measures, we just want to know—“How are you?”

Posted by Katie Massey, Research Director on May 17, 2014

Clients and parents tell us how things are going 1.5 years after graduating

At Second Nature we have been conducting research to evaluate our programs for more than six years, and we recently completed an 18-month follow-up. While we use sophisticated standardized and validated questionnaires to measure change in functioning; for this 18-month follow up, we also wanted to hear from clients in a more simple and personal way.

We asked clients and parents several additional questions like: How are you doing overall? How is school or work going? How is communication with your parents? How effective was Second Nature for you?

Of the young adult and adolescents clients who responded, 80% or more felt that they were doing excellently or well on those first three questions, and less than 4% reported to be doing poorly in those categories. Ninety-two percent of clients said that Second Nature was helpful to them. Responses to this question are perhaps the most exciting as most clients entering Second Nature do not want to be in a wilderness program and do not think they need it.

Young Adults & Adolescents—18 months post Second Nature

Responses from parents of adolescents paralleled that of clients with high positivity. Roughly 80% of parents said that those first three categories were excellent or good, and less than 4% responded as “poorly”. An overwhelming 99% of parents thought Second Nature was helpful for their situation.

Parents of adolescents—18 months post Second Nature

We surveyed 386 adolescent and young adult alumni. Roughly 30% of clients and more than half of parents of adolescents responded. While this may seem like a small group, this level of response is considered good in terms of survey research and is excellent when compared to response rates in outdoor behavioral healthcare research. As a result of enormous efforts in reaching out to clients, we saw strong response rates at our six and 18-month follow-ups. This allows us to conduct sophisticated analyses and to provide evidence for the field regarding the long-term effectiveness of wilderness therapy.

From its start, Second Nature has heard story after story of changed lives. It is encouraging and exciting to see that research and empirical data supports these testimonials. To read more about Second Nature’s research efforts, visit our snwp webpage: Evidence It Works. More details on our exciting 18-month follow-up will be coming soon!