Teen Summer IOP in Petaluma and Fresno
Their days are still theirs. The real work starts at 4:00 PM.
When school ends, so does the structure many teens have been quietly leaning on all year. The friends they saw without trying. The schedule that kept the day moving. The places to be and people who noticed if they weren’t there. For a teen who’s been struggling, summer can be when things slip — not because anything new happens, but because the scaffolding is gone.
Our Summer Intensive Outpatient Program is built for that window. Three to four afternoons a week, from 4:00 to 7:00 PM, your teen joins a small group of peers working on the same things they are — with clinical support from a team that specializes in adolescent mental health and substance use. Mornings and early afternoons remain theirs. What changes is what comes next.
In-Network With Most Commercial Insurers
*Please note that at this time, we are not in network with Medicaid/Medi-Cal
Clinically reviewed by Dr. Ian Wolds Psy.D.
— Updated on May 6, 2026
What Is an Intensive Outpatient Program for Teens?
An Intensive Outpatient Program — IOP — is a structured level of teen mental health and substance use treatment that sits between weekly outpatient therapy and full-time residential care. For a teen who needs more than a one-hour session with a therapist once a week, but who can safely remain at home and doesn’t require 24/7 supervision, IOP is often the right next step. Teens attend three to four afternoons a week for several hours of clinical work — group therapy, individual therapy, family therapy, and skills practice — then return home each night.
At Muir Wood, our adolescent IOP is the same clinical model we run year-round, with a schedule shaped around summer life. It’s built specifically for teens ages 12–17, led by clinicians who specialize in adolescents, and integrates family programming from the first week. We don’t separate “the teen’s work” from “the family’s work” — both happen in parallel, because the home a teen returns to each evening shapes how much of the clinical work sticks.
If you’re still triangulating between levels of care — residential versus IOP versus continuing weekly therapy — our admissions team can help you sort it out. The full IOP overview covers the standard year-round program; the page below focuses on what summer specifically changes.
Why Summer Is the Right Time to Start Teen IOP
Summer is one of the most clinically practical windows to step a struggling teen into a higher level of care. The barriers that exist during the school year fall away. There’s no class to miss, no fall-behind anxiety, no balancing act with extracurriculars. Family schedules tend to be more flexible. Therapists and clinicians have more bandwidth. And teens, freed from the daily structure of school, have the focus to actually do the work in front of them.
For a teen who needs more than weekly therapy but doesn’t require around-the-clock care, summer is when the math gets easier. A full 12-week IOP arc, started in summer, can shift how a teen enters the school year — not just in terms of symptoms, but in how they understand themselves, how they relate to their family, and what tools they have when things get hard. Teens who start IOP in summer arrive at September in a fundamentally different position than teens who wait.
“The single most powerful tool we have is early intervention. It’s not just about treating what’s wrong — it’s about protecting what’s right. The sooner we start, the stronger the outcome.”
— Dr. David E. Smith, Chair of Addiction Medicine
What Happens When School Ends and the Structure Goes With It
For a lot of teens, school is doing more than they realize. Class schedules give the day shape. Friends are nearby without anyone having to plan it. Coaches and teachers are watching the small signs. Even when the year is hard, school provides a kind of scaffolding that holds a struggling teen up. When summer arrives, that scaffolding disappears — and what was being held up has to hold itself up.
Parents often describe noticing the change a few weeks in. The teen who was managing during the school year starts sleeping later, withdrawing more, spending hours alone, drinking or using more, snapping at siblings, refusing to leave the house. None of it is dramatic in any single moment. It’s the slow accumulation. By August, the family is more exhausted than they were in June, and the teen is in a worse place than when school ended.
This is what IOP is built to interrupt. Not by overhauling summer — the mornings and early afternoons remain free — but by adding back the structure, the peer connection, and the clinical attention that holds a teen steady during the window when their usual supports are gone.
Conditions We Treat
Muir Wood specializes in the mental health and substance use challenges most common in adolescents, and in the situations where those challenges overlap. Every teen receives an individualized treatment plan built around the full picture of what they’re experiencing.
Substance Use and Dual Diagnosis
For adolescents, substance use rarely exists in isolation. We treat substance use alongside the underlying mental health conditions driving it, because addressing only one limits how far recovery can go. Our integrated clinical model is built for this overlap.
Depression and Mood Disorders
From persistent sadness and hopelessness to bipolar presentations and emotional dysregulation, our team provides evidence-based treatment for the full spectrum of adolescent mood conditions — often in combination with the anxiety, trauma, or substance use that accompanies them.
Trauma and PTSD
Our trauma-informed approach recognizes that behaviors adults sometimes label as defiance, withdrawal, or acting out are often protective responses to past pain. We treat the teen — not just the symptom.
Self-Harm and Suicidal Ideation
For teens who have stabilized after residential treatment, or for milder ideation in the context of depression with a safe home environment, IOP supports the ongoing work. Teens with active safety concerns typically benefit from residential care as the starting point. Our admissions team can help you sort out the right level of care.
ADHD and Co-Occurring Challenges
ADHD rarely shows up alone in adolescence. We address the attention and self-regulation challenges alongside the anxiety, depression, or substance use that often travels with them.
For a full view of what Muir Wood treats across our residential and IOP programs, see our complete list of conditions we treat.
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What to Expect in Our Summer IOP
Muir Wood’s Summer Intensive Outpatient Program is the same clinically rigorous model we run year-round, scheduled around summer life. Teens attend three to four days a week, 4:00 to 7:00 PM, at our Petaluma or Fresno locations. The work happens in a small peer group, led by licensed clinicians who specialize in adolescent mental health and substance use.
A typical week includes
Group therapy three to four afternoons a week, covering emotional regulation (DBT), trauma recovery (Seeking Safety), values-based decision-making (ACT), relapse prevention when relevant, healthy relationships, and planning for real-life challenges.
Weekly individual therapy with the teen’s primary therapist.
Weekly family therapy — not optional, not bolted on. Built into how IOP works at Muir Wood.
Weekly parent education and a parent support group, so parents are doing their own work alongside their teen rather than waiting on the sidelines.
Coordinated care planning that starts early and connects with school counselors, outside providers, and aftercare supports.
Each week ends with goal-setting and safety planning, so what gets built in the room moves with the teen into the days between sessions. Our clinical model draws on a range of evidence-based therapies — DBT, CBT, ACT, motivational interviewing, Seeking Safety — selected for the teen in front of us rather than applied as a one-size protocol.
“Our IOP creates a safe, supportive space where teens can gain insight, build coping skills, and keep growing — without stepping away from daily life.”
— Dr. Ian Wolds, PsyD — Chief Clinical Officer
How We Approach Treatment
Muir Wood treats teens — only teens, ages 12 to 17. That focus shapes everything we do. Our team includes board-certified adolescent psychiatrists, licensed therapists, and recovery counselors who specialize exclusively in this age group. We don’t adapt adult models for younger people; we build for adolescents from the ground up.
We work from a single premise: all behaviors exist for a reason. The patterns that bring teens and families to us — the shutting down, the substance use, the explosive arguments, the school avoidance — are almost always attempts to cope with something underneath. Our job is to understand what’s underneath, and to help the teen build better tools than the ones they’ve been using. This is the heart of our clinical approach.
“Our goal is always to understand the full picture — not just the symptoms, but the story behind them. That’s how we ensure treatment is truly personalized and effective for each teen we serve.”
— Dr. Ian Wolds, PsyD — Chief Clinical Officer
When mental health and substance use show up together — as they often do in adolescence — we treat them together. Separating them, in our experience, tends to leave the underlying patterns intact. Co-occurring conditions are the rule rather than the exception in adolescent treatment, and our integrated model is built for that reality.
What Makes Muir Wood Different
Specialists in Adolescent Care
Everything we do is built for teens ages 12–17 — not adapted from adult models. Our entire team specializes in adolescent mental health and substance use treatment, working as an integrated unit around each teen.
Depth in Both Mental Health and Substance Use
We’re one of the few programs in California built to treat primary mental health and co-occurring substance use with equal clinical depth. Trauma-informed, integrated, designed to address the root rather than the surface.
Weekly family therapy. Weekly parent education. Weekly parent support groups. Weekly huddles with the primary therapist. Four weekly touchpoints for parents while the teen is in IOP — because the home a teen returns to matters as much as the work they do in session.
Coverage That Doesn’t Get in the Way
In-network with most major commercial insurance. The insurance verification process is fast and free — you don’t commit to anything to find out what your plan covers.
Continuity and Collaboration with Your Team
We believe strong outcomes depend on continuity and collaboration. From admission through discharge, we coordinate closely with your teen’s existing providers and aftercare programs — whether that’s a longstanding therapist, a psychiatrist, a school counselor, or another outpatient partner. Our team stays in regular communication with the broader care network to support timely transitions, shared understanding, and a clear path forward.
For teens stepping down from residential treatment, IOP is part of a deliberate continuum. For teens whose outpatient provider referred them in, we treat that provider as part of the care team and stay in close contact throughout treatment. The goal is never to disrupt what’s already working; it’s to add what’s needed for as long as it’s needed, and then to hand back a teen who’s ready for the next phase.
Our Intensive Outpatient Locations
What Families Say
Nothing speaks to what a teen treatment center is like more than reviews from parents who have lived the experience.
“I can’t say enough positive details of how Muir Wood is there for your child and also there to keep the families informed along the way. It is very emotional at times, but there is always someone you can call if questions arise and you are supported by attending online parenting classes while your child is in residential. They help give you as much information as possible to help you have a healthy and successful road in the future. I would recommend 110%.”
— Malinda C., Jan 2026
“I am so grateful Muir Wood exists. We were in crisis and didn’t know where to send our son to keep him safe — Muir Wood was the answer to our prayers. His therapist was loving, kind, and non-judgmental, and the Zoom parent sessions helped us, too. The evaluation and diagnosis he received have been life-changing, getting him set up with accommodations after discharge. Thank you, Muir Wood, for being a safe place for these boys when there’s nowhere else to turn. We needed you.”
— Adele K., May 2026
“An amazing experience for both my daughter in treatment and us as parents. We had an amazing team helping us from day 1. She was living in beautiful facilities, and I knew from the beginning she would be there with a group of trusted, positive, and helpful staff. The communication weekly has been amazing, and I highly recommend this to anyone who needs help for their child.”
— Carrie M., Feb 2026
“Ruby had a very positive experience overall both times. Many programs make lots of promises and don’t deliver. Muir wood was a transformational experience for Ruby and I think the experience of being part of a community of peers was especially helpful. I’m a mental health professional myself and have already recommended Muir Wood to friends with teens who are struggling.”
Sasha A. Blum – September 2023
“There really are other families that are struggling in more or less the same ways that we are,” she shares in the video below. “I think there’s a way that addiction can make people feel like it’s only happening to them, and it’s really not. It’s behind so many closed doors. And I only wish that more people would come out and get the help that they deserve and that is there to be had. I’m really grateful we found it.”
Katie F. – June 2024
What to Expect When You Call
We know reaching out for teen treatment is one of the hardest things a parent can do. Here’s exactly what happens when you call Muir Wood.
1. Speak with an admissions coordinator
A real person answers, not a call center. You’ll have space to share what’s happening with your teen, ask questions, and get honest information. There’s no pressure and no obligation to move forward.
2. A brief clinical consultation
Our admissions team will help you understand what level of care is right for your teen, whether IOP fits, and — if it doesn’t — point you toward a better option, even if that means a different program. The goal of the first call is honest information, not enrollment.
3. Insurance verification and next steps
We verify your insurance coverage directly with your carrier, usually on the same call. You’ll know your benefits, your out-of-pocket responsibility, and any prior authorization requirements before you make any decisions.
4. Scheduling and orientation
Once you’ve decided to proceed, our team coordinates the IOP start date, the first family therapy appointment, and the parent education schedule. For most families, a summer IOP start can happen within a week of the first call.
2 Simple Ways to Get Started Today
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Frequently Asked Questions
Summer IOP is a 12-week program. The structure is fixed because the clinical work has a defined arc — group therapy, skills building, family integration, and discharge planning all unfold across that span. A summer enrollment that starts in late June runs through mid-September, overlapping with the start of the school year, which is intentional. At the end of 12 weeks, most teens step down to weekly outpatient therapy with aftercare support; some continue at a higher level of care if clinically indicated.
No. Sessions run 4:00 to 7:00 PM, three to four days a week. Mornings and early afternoons remain free for camp, work, family time, sports, or simply being a teenager in summer. What IOP changes is the structure of the late afternoon — not the whole season.
If at any point IOP isn’t enough — or if it becomes clear from the start that a higher level of care is the right fit — we have residential programs across Sonoma County, the Central Valley, and Riverside County. The transition happens within our team, with clinicians who already know the family.
We’re in-network with most major commercial insurance plans, including Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, Cigna, Optum, United Healthcare, MHN, Magellan, and TRICARE. We don’t accept Medi-Cal or Medicaid. The fastest way to find out what your plan covers is to use our insurance verification form — it takes a few minutes and there’s no commitment.
Yes, and we encourage it when it makes sense clinically. We coordinate with outside providers throughout treatment so the work stays aligned. Many teens return to their longstanding therapist after IOP, with both providers having stayed in regular communication along the way.
Anxiety, depression, trauma, mood disorders, emotional dysregulation, ADHD-related challenges, substance use, and many co-occurring presentations. For teens with active safety concerns, residential treatment is typically the appropriate starting point rather than IOP. If you’re not sure where your teen fits, calling us is the best way to find out.
The clinical model is the same. What changes in summer is the timing and the framing — we run the same 3-to-4-day-a-week structure with the same group of clinicians, but the cohort shifts to teens who are using the summer window strategically rather than entering mid-school-year. The schedule still runs 4:00 to 7:00 PM, which dovetails with summer life for most families.
Call us, or submit the insurance verification form. Our admissions team will talk through what’s going on with your teen, answer questions about the program, and help you understand whether IOP — or another level of care — is the right next step. There’s no pressure, and the conversation itself can be useful even if you’re still deciding.
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