Sometimes a teen gets into serious trouble. It is often caused by using drugs and abusing alcohol. This type of serious trouble requires a serious response and arguably the best - some would say the only - treatment involves the teenager leaving home to live in a residential treatment facility. There are different types of facilities such as:

- Clinical treatment center
- Boot camps
- Religious based center
- Therapeutic boarding school

If you are a parent with a teen in trouble, do check out examples of each of the above type of facility. Each has much to offer and the key to helping your child is to match their needs with the programs on offer. Make the right choice.

A clinical treatment center is ideal if your teen has a medical condition in addition to their drug and/or alcohol problem. The residents undergo a full-on detoxification program and having a medical condition means on-call medical staff are essential. That's what the residents receive. These centers are often attached to a hospital so that the full resources of the medical center are available for the clinic. It is important that parents be given regular access to their child and his or her records. The teens are constantly monitored and there are times when the street drugs the teen may have been using is replaced with a prescriptive drug to assist in the recovery process.

Boot camps are ideal for those teens that need some discipline in their life. As well as programs involving therapy and academic studies, each resident is given plenty of worthwhile work and a timetable which takes their mind away from their addiction. The idea behind the program is to keep the residents super busy, to require them to be physically active and thus toughen them up physically and mentally. It depends on how bad a problem your teen has. If they need a short sharp shock, then that is what they will get.

Religious based facilities call on Christian teaching as the core of their program using prayer and scripture to help the residents overcome their addiction. Putting your trust in Jesus has certainly worked for some troubled teens but not for all; but then that can be said of most if not all other types of residential treatment. Obviously Christian parents will be more inclined to choose a faith based program.

Boarding schools with a strong program in therapy are often popular with troubled teens. It's somewhat of a school away from school where the academic program means smaller classes and after hours' tuition and where the therapy sessions target the problems faced by each individual. These facilities are not clinics or boot camps and have a feeling of community. Therapeutic boarding schools have enjoyed a great deal of success when dealing with young people addicted to drugs and alcohol.

The icing on the cake is when the school provides training for the family of the troubled teen. Hopefully, now no longer troubled, the teen returns to their home and to a family which has been trained to continue supporting their loved one. It's so important to continue the recovery once the residential treatment is over.