About Us: The Sunrise Story

Sunrise RTC was founded in 2000 by a group of educators and therapists from the Hurricane community who wanted to create a values-based program for troubled teenage girls. Modeling their approach after that of the highly touted New Haven RTC, the new program started with 12 girls and quickly began to implement a highly relational, values-based philosophy of treatment.

The vision was to create an RTC that would have the best features of a college prep boarding school, residential treatment facility, and transition program. Sunrise's in-town location made it the perfect candidate for this all-in-one approach to treatment.

"With the crew that already existed and a ton of help from New Haven we worked on creating a team atmosphere in which licensed staff engaged with the girls in a mentoring/teaching fashion," says Sunrise Director, Dave Prior. "We immediately went to work on cultivating a culture of staff/student engagement, nurturance, and boundaries-and we took a decidedly proactive approach to treatment."

Dave spent most of his initial years at Sunrise hiring and training staff in a very hands-on fashion. He modeled the Sunrise therapeutic approach himself, taking on a large caseload initially and involving himself directly in all aspects of programming. One of the key elements of this transition was staff selection, "I needed to find staff who could be torch bearers of the Sunrise culture and treatment approach; that's the only way to create a strong and sustainable future for a program. I'm proud to say we've achieved this and I'm extremely pleased with the team we've built."

Sunrise quickly became a premier therapeutic program and expanded its capacity to what Dave considers the ideal size of 32 students. The culture at Sunrise is built around nurturance, relationship, and balance; it's a culture that staff, students, and parents rave about. "I envision us becoming a leader within the treatment industry - a model for effective treatment and healthy management that others will look to," says Dave.