Joan Farley Academy - Lowry (Third Way Center)

Joan Farley Academy is the school inside Third Way Center, a Denver organization that has worked with teens facing trauma and complex mental health needs since 1970. Our Lowry campus can educate up to 34 youth, and its students live in the four coed houses of the psychiatric residential treatment program on the same staff-secure campus.

Both Joan Farley Academy campuses are state-approved facility schools. Classes are small and led by licensed master's-level special education teachers, working with licensed school social workers and counselors trained to support traumatized youth. Treatment teams and teachers coordinate so each student is ready to learn, and residents can earn a high school diploma or GED while they are here.

Learning reaches past the classroom through service-learning trips to Mission: Wolf, vocational exploration with community partners, and career programs at Denver Public Schools' CEC Early College. Our vocational education team helps with resumes, interview practice and paid or volunteer work, and recreational therapy adds hiking, rafting, art and gardening. Students enroll through a referral to Third Way Center's residential program.