Northwest Passage’s Riverside campus, situated in the lakes and woods region of Northwest Wisconsin, is designed for the unique needs of adolescent males and gender-diverse adolescents ages 12-17. Programming focuses on building resiliency through developing a therapeutic lifestyle based on our grounding principle The PassageWay. These lifestyle components help each young person create better emotional regulation, develop healthy coping skills, promote positive relationship-building, and provide a connection to the community.

We work together with the youth and their families to help them see themselves in a new light through experiential learning, innovative mental health interventions, therapeutic lifestyle choices, and safe relationships. Northwest Passage is a treatment community that seeks to create safe spaces for a diverse range of youth including those who identify as LGBTQ, youth of color, youth who are neuro-diverse, and those who have been misunderstood by their own communities.

Additionally, we find engaging ways to teach evidence-based interventions like DBT and SMART skills along with ARC-informed interventions to youth, their family systems, and their caregiving staff. As a way to encourage engagement, treatment might include mountain biking in the northern Wisconsin woods, fishing or canoeing the river on our private peninsula, spending time in nature with a camera, or creating projects in our woodworking shop.