What are some good boarding schools to send a troubled teen to?

Question

my child is a 17 year old drug user who engages in extremely risky behavior

Answer 1

There aren't any.

Straight-derived (and don't expect a facility to tell you that it is)? Straight was shut down for abuse.

CEDU-derived (and don't expect a facility to tell you that it is)? CEDU was shut down for abuse.

Aspen Education Group? Their Youth Care facility DIDN'T care when some kid died, screaming, of a bowel infarction. They said he died in his sleep (impossible- bowel infarctions are extremely painful and take hours to kill you).

WWASPS-derived? Four words: High Impact Dog Cages. Don't google that unless you want nightmares.

Thayer Learning Center? Kills kids and is being sued for it.

Even if there was a good one out there, how would you know? Shutting the abusive hellholes down is like playing whack-a-mole. Care to play five-bullet Russian Roulette with your kid?

It's a simple flaw in the paradigm. You CAN NOT send your kid somewhere to "be cured", especially not to people who don't have any credentials, and hope to get an actual good kid back. It simply does not work that way.

Now if your question had been "How do I deal with a defiant or drug-using teen" I would redirect you to Functional Family Therapy or some other proven, systemic model used by actual psychologists that doesn't promise absolute cures. Try again with a question like that and you'll probably get answers less horrifying than this one.

(Oh, and bring your kid in and have him read THIS ANSWER. See how it goes!)

Answer 2

I would look for a military school in your area.   The link below has a national directory.