Research on Wendigo Lake Staff Will Lead to Better Outcomes For Clients

Wendigo Lake Instructors are currently serving as subjects in two separate independent research studies. One study coming out of the University of Edinburgh is exploring the relationship between the work life and personal life of front line staff. The second multi-site study is being conducted by researchers out of Brigham Young University. This study is gathering information from Instructors about their education/training, personality type, attitudes towards their work, etc., and correlating this data against performance evaluations completed by supervisors, peer staff and students – hoping to identify predictors of high performance therapeutic staff.

The findings from these studies will lead to increased understanding of the attributes therapeutic programs should look for in order to create an optimal treatment team and further illuminate those aspects of the work experience most important to maintaining a healthy, happy, motivated workforce. Research has already definitively determined that the quality of the therapeutic alliance and relationship between staff and client is by far the most powerful determinant of client outcomes.

Wendigo Lake is well-known for the quality of its staff and their capacity to quickly form strong therapeutic alliances with behaviorally challenging youth. I believe it is the powerful synergy of amazingly skilled and caring staff, combined with our unique adventure therapy program design and integrated on-site classrooms which has lead many residential placement professionals to believe Wendigo Lake provides one of the best therapeutic placement options available in Ontario.