Hillcrest Educational Centers was founded on the belief that our students are unique individuals with specific needs. Accordingly, the residential and educational programming we offer is tailored to help students deal with the trauma that has affected their lives and to enable students to both reach and use their true potential.

Students are referred to Hillcrest Educational Centers when their behavior is severely problematic, self-defeating, and, sometimes dangerous to themselves and/or others. Therefore, our students require residential treatment in order to develop and learn to use self-control, to change their behavior, and to grow psychologically and emotionally. HEC’s goal is to facilitate the social, emotional, intellectual, physical and spiritual growth of our students so that they will be able to do well in less restrictive settings and eventually return to their communities.

Our treatment approach is interdisciplinary. This means that we offer each student an individualized care and treatment plan and services provided by a combination of qualified professional and paraprofessional staff who are trained in the various approaches and skills required for that student’s individual development and unique needs. These disciplines and approaches include: clinical and medical; counseling and therapy; special education; speech, language and hearing; occupational therapy; physical therapy; recreation; and residential.

Services are delivered at HEC through a team model. Educators, psychologists, clinicians, nurses, physicians, therapists and other specialists all work together with the youth development staff as treatment teams to serve a specific group of students who are assigned to that team. The teams take a pro-active approach to helping the student acquire new skills, enhance existing skills and strengths, and change their problem behavior patterns. The primary focus of our treatment is to enhance the quality of our students’ lives, both in the present at Hillcrest and in the future as members of society.

You’ll note that we refer to the children we serve as “students”. At Hillcrest Educational Centers, we believe that all people can change, grow, and learn. In that sense, we believe that we are all learners and we are all students. We learn, from our work with our students, how to be better teachers and helpers, and sometimes, from the courage that our students show as they struggle to learn and grow, we learn about how to be courageous in a world that is too often cruel and exceedingly difficult.

We call the children students because at their Hillcrest program each student can and will learn. They will learn new ways of thinking, feeling and acting; new ways to get along with others; new ways to get their needs met; new ways of succeeding in the world.