ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews a number of secondary school options for youth with emotional or behavioral disorders. Postsecondary educational settings are all too often inflexible in their responses to divergent lifestyles and behavior patterns. One of the important aspects of any program for youth with emotional and behavioral disorders is to ensure the availability for support and instruction in areas other than traditional academic skills. College is a reasonable goal for some youth with behavior and emotional disorders, but only with careful planning and the provision of ongoing support. The distance between the idealistic and inclusive nature of our best schooling and the harsh realities of the world at large is still great enough to create high risks for youth deprived of special options. The Belief Academy is an attempt to enlarge what the Career Ladder Program began, and to address the coordination-of-service issue—it creates long-term program relationships with youth beginning in the middle school.
