Summer Is When Step-Down Clients Are Most at Risk
Summer Is When Step-Down Clients Are Most at Risk. Here's What We Offer in That Gap.
The school year ends, the program structure disappears, and the clients who were holding steady start to slip. This is what BODA was built for.
If you work with adolescents or young adults, you already know what happens in June.
The school year ends. The IOP schedules wind down. You're watching your client walk into the exact conditions that made them struggle in the first place, without the scaffolding that was holding them up. Summer looks like freedom. Clinically, it often looks like exposure to everything we spent the year trying to build capacity for.
A weekly 50-minute session on Tuesdays is a reasonable anchor when there's school Monday through Friday. In July, with no structure, devices available around the clock, sleep dysregulated, and a social landscape that looks completely different than it did in March, it's often not enough.
What BODA Offers in This Gap
BODA is an outpatient practice. We are not a residential program, a wilderness program, or an IOP. But we're structured to flex when clients need more than weekly outpatient work, and summer is when that flexibility matters most.
The Accountability Program is the most relevant piece here: wearables that track sleep and exercise between sessions, structured check-ins, and family sessions to monitor week-to-week progress. For clients who are at risk of backsliding over the summer, this is a layer most outpatient providers can't offer, and one that can make a real difference in whether progress from a higher level of care actually holds.
Sessions happen outdoors in parks, on trails through hiking or skiing, and on waterways throughout the New York City area and the Catskills. For clients who are treatment-resistant or exhausted by the idea of another office-based session, the activity-based format often changes the engagement profile.
This is not an aesthetic choice. For a significant portion of the adolescent and young adult clients we see, movement is regulating in a way that sitting still isn't, and the outdoor environment removes several of the triggers that make traditional therapy feel threatening.
We also run three to five-night retreats in the Catskills, designed for clients who need a more intensive reset. These work well as a step-down tool for clients leaving residential treatment or an IOP who need momentum before returning to weekly outpatient care.
Retreats can also serve a diagnostic function. What happens to a client in an unstructured, residential-adjacent setting with clinical support present is often highly informative about what ongoing treatment needs to address.
On Collaboration
BODA does not want to replace anyone's primary provider.
If you're the primary outpatient therapist and your client needs an adjunctive accountability layer for the summer, we can provide that without disrupting your one-on-one work.
If you're the psychiatrist managing medication while a client steps down from a higher level of care, we can provide the structure piece and report back.
If you're an educational or therapeutic consultant looking for a summer resource for a client in the New York metropolitan area, we're worth knowing about.
To refer, you don't need a portal.
Email us directly at info@bodatherapy.com. We'll respond quickly, ask the right questions, and tell you honestly whether BODA is the right fit. If it isn't, we'll say so.
Who We See
We work primarily with:
Families are part of the work. Parents aren't bystanders.
Our founder, Andrew Tepper, LCSW (Columbia MSW, with more than 20 years in practice), is in the field with clients, not just managing the practice.
If a clinician-to-clinician conversation would be helpful before you refer, that's available.
Email us directly at info@bodatherapy.com.
BODA Therapy provides therapy, coaching, and immersive retreats for preteens, adolescents, young adults, and families. Based in New York City and the Catskills, we work closely with parents, clinicians, educational consultants, and therapeutic consultants. Featured in The New York Times, NBC News, CNBC, and Parents.com.
The school year ends, the program structure disappears, and the clients who were holding steady start to slip. This is what BODA was built for.
If you work with adolescents or young adults, you already know what happens in June.
The school year ends. The IOP schedules wind down. You're watching your client walk into the exact conditions that made them struggle in the first place, without the scaffolding that was holding them up. Summer looks like freedom. Clinically, it often looks like exposure to everything we spent the year trying to build capacity for.
A weekly 50-minute session on Tuesdays is a reasonable anchor when there's school Monday through Friday. In July, with no structure, devices available around the clock, sleep dysregulated, and a social landscape that looks completely different than it did in March, it's often not enough.
What BODA Offers in This Gap
BODA is an outpatient practice. We are not a residential program, a wilderness program, or an IOP. But we're structured to flex when clients need more than weekly outpatient work, and summer is when that flexibility matters most.
The Accountability Program is the most relevant piece here: wearables that track sleep and exercise between sessions, structured check-ins, and family sessions to monitor week-to-week progress. For clients who are at risk of backsliding over the summer, this is a layer most outpatient providers can't offer, and one that can make a real difference in whether progress from a higher level of care actually holds.
Sessions happen outdoors in parks, on trails through hiking or skiing, and on waterways throughout the New York City area and the Catskills. For clients who are treatment-resistant or exhausted by the idea of another office-based session, the activity-based format often changes the engagement profile.
This is not an aesthetic choice. For a significant portion of the adolescent and young adult clients we see, movement is regulating in a way that sitting still isn't, and the outdoor environment removes several of the triggers that make traditional therapy feel threatening.
We also run three to five-night retreats in the Catskills, designed for clients who need a more intensive reset. These work well as a step-down tool for clients leaving residential treatment or an IOP who need momentum before returning to weekly outpatient care.
Retreats can also serve a diagnostic function. What happens to a client in an unstructured, residential-adjacent setting with clinical support present is often highly informative about what ongoing treatment needs to address.
On Collaboration
BODA does not want to replace anyone's primary provider.
If you're the primary outpatient therapist and your client needs an adjunctive accountability layer for the summer, we can provide that without disrupting your one-on-one work.
If you're the psychiatrist managing medication while a client steps down from a higher level of care, we can provide the structure piece and report back.
If you're an educational or therapeutic consultant looking for a summer resource for a client in the New York metropolitan area, we're worth knowing about.
To refer, you don't need a portal.
Email us directly at info@bodatherapy.com. We'll respond quickly, ask the right questions, and tell you honestly whether BODA is the right fit. If it isn't, we'll say so.
Who We See
We work primarily with:
- Preteens
- Adolescents
- Young adults
- Clients with co-occurring ADHD and anxiety
- School avoidance
- High-achieving students who aren't functioning
- Clients stepping down from a higher level of care
- Clients who have refused or disengaged from office-based therapy
Families are part of the work. Parents aren't bystanders.
Our founder, Andrew Tepper, LCSW (Columbia MSW, with more than 20 years in practice), is in the field with clients, not just managing the practice.
If a clinician-to-clinician conversation would be helpful before you refer, that's available.
Email us directly at info@bodatherapy.com.
BODA Therapy provides therapy, coaching, and immersive retreats for preteens, adolescents, young adults, and families. Based in New York City and the Catskills, we work closely with parents, clinicians, educational consultants, and therapeutic consultants. Featured in The New York Times, NBC News, CNBC, and Parents.com.
My sessions with Andrew while skiing were among the most fruitful therapy sessions I've had.
There’s something about being in nature, having the space to move, reflect, and dig into issues that need solving while in such a beautiful environment that gave me the perspective I needed to get mentally unstuck. If you want high quality therapy while having an amazing time in the outdoors, Andrew’s your guy for sure.
-Robert
Giving our clients a comprehensive and accountable approach to therapy through immersive, non-disruptive, wrap-around experiences.
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