As a private educational facility, Provo Canyon charges tuition fees, but also receives state and federal funding. Many students are placed in the facility by one or both of their parents, typically because mental health professionals and parents feel that residential placement is needed to address their children's behavioral health and educational problems. Others are placed there by probation officers or juvenile courts, or local school districts. In the latter case, tuition is covered by state and federal agencies in accordance with state special education laws and the federal Education for All Handicapped Children Act. Provo Canyon School combines an academic program with individual, group, family and recreational therapy. Treatment teams for each student include staff, therapists, doctors, and teachers. According to the school's promotional materials, most of the faculty are certified in special education. Treatments may include anger management, sexual issues/trauma resolution, impulse control, stress reduction, assertiveness training, substance abuse groups and additional recreational therapy. Provo Canyon School's stated philosophy stresses that "youth must take responsibility for their actions or inactions," extending from "cleanliness and order of personal belongings to daily interactions with staff and peers." The "behavioral modification program" used by Provo Canyon School in its earliest years included physical restraint, physical punishment, isolation from the outside world, progressive restoration of liberty, lie detectors, monitoring of personal communication, and administration of drugs. However, a 1979 permanent court injunction specifically prohibited the Provo Canyon School and its Medical Director from: " opening, reading, monitoring or censoring the boys' mail; administering polygraph examinations for any purpose whatsoever; placing boys in isolation facilities for any reason other than to contain a boy who is physically violent; and using physical force for any purpose other than to restrain a juvenile who is either physically violent and immediately dangerous to himself or others or physically resisting institutional rules." The school has specialized programs for substance abuse and addiction problems. Its Sommerset program, formerly called the Academy at Canyon Creek, is a pair of early adolescent programs for boys and girls ages ten to fourteen with ADD-ADHD and related behavioral challenges. At one time, the school required highly regimented behavior, but in 1996 it was reported to have become more relaxed over time. Whereas in the past isolation from family was enforced, the facility states that it now explicitly encourages family visits and helps organize family support groups. Notable alumni include Paris Hilton, who attended Provo Canyon for about one year when she was a teenager. also attended Provo Canyon before he received a sentence of 16 years to life at the age of 17 for killing a man.
