Bringing Residential Mental Health Programs Into Nature
Spending time in the wilderness provides an ideal setting for reflection, free from the distractions and influences of everyday life. Wilderness therapy is an excellent catalyst for behavioral change.
At Trails, we combine this therapeutic environment with research-based clinical expertise, allowing our staff to meet the unique developmental and psychological needs of each student under their care.

Our approach has several key elements that lead to lasting, positive outcomes:

The Trails Team Offers More Holistic, Comprehensive Treatment
When your child is enrolled with Trails Carolina, they’ll have a team of professionals working to help them create long-lasting change.
This team includes their primary therapist, a family coach, field instructors, certified teachers, and an equine specialist. Combined, these experts will present your child with new opportunities and challenges to create a diverse, integrated experience.
At the end of the day, this results in a more comprehensive assessment and allows your child to learn and reinforce positive behaviors across a variety of rewarding activities.

Family Involvement To Support Long-Lasting, Positive Change
Student success is often based on healing strained relationships and developing better communication habits with their family. For this to happen, the entire family needs to undergo a healing process, and learn new skills to support the student’s success.
Applying a family systems approach, we keep your family involved throughout the entire program, utilizing a variety of activities and approaches. These include:
- Weekly calls from your child’s primary therapist to inform you of their progress, challenges, and opportunities
- Weekly letter exchanges with your child
- Weekly collaborative conference calls with a family coach and other families in similar stages
- Bi-weekly connection with a family coach who also provides sibling support
- Parent Workshop a few weeks during your child’s stay to connect and better understand the program
- Family Reunification or “graduation” weekend
- Family Camp: a 5-day extended stay option for the entire family.
Different Settings & Experiences For More Successful Skill Development
Many of our students struggle with anxiety, confidence, or transitions. Outdoor activities undoubtedly open a student’s mind towards reflection, self-awareness, and change, but that alone isn’t enough. At Trails Carolina, our wilderness treatment center creates dynamic changes in a structured setting. Our team helps strengthen students’ new skills across the diverse environments of everyday life.
At Trails, we understand that success in a given environment does not guarantee a student’s ability to transition those skills. In order to create lasting change, we need to help your child become adaptable, which is why we purposely incorporate transitional experiences into the program.

In-Depth Assessment For Personalized Treatment Plans
Our Trails Team combines a variety of specialties and environments to develop the most comprehensive assessment possible for your child. By observing your child in different lights, we’re able to learn when they thrive and when they struggle. We also consider your child in the context of family, peers, school, recreation, and self. This provides a deeper understanding of the individual and allows our team to customize your child’s treatment plan in order to yield greater success.

Our Groups
At Trails Carolina, we provide a safe, healthy environment for a variety of age groups to receive treatment. We offer wilderness therapy programs for preteen boys (10-13), preteen girls (10-13), teen girls (14-17), and teen boys (14-17).
We believe that segmenting groups by age and gender allows our team of mental health professionals, wilderness and adventure camp field instructors, and accredited education consultants to provide more focused and effective personalized care to each student. Additionally, evidence shows that using segmented peer groups helps students learn to build positive relationships among their own peers. This makes the transition back to traditional school settings easier for young people. And it helps our students learn how to interact and build healthy connections for life.
Get started today
Contact us today to learn how Trails Carolina can help your family
Trails saved my daughter’s life. Amanda is an amazing human and a brilliant therapist. I am so grateful to her, Science Steve, and the other wonderful people who could reach my daughter at a time when I could not.
Margot Lowman August 2022
Great life changing experience for our son. After becoming addicted to gaming during covid he was very depressed. At Trails he experienced the wilderness, Science Steve, learning survival skills and top notch therapy and support etc… I highly recommend! This gave our son and our family a renewed family bond full of love and excitement about his bright future.
Winnifred Wilson July 2022
Outstanding clinical work and superb staff! There’s a great culture at this company and it shows with how they engage with families/clients.
Kristin Brace June 2022