A description is provided of the Garrison Model, an educational therapeutic program for youth with severe behavior disorders which emphasizes a student's responsibility for choices that are made. The model was developed at the Garrison School, a public alternative day school in Illinois that serves students with severe behavioral disorders. The following key elements of the model are discussed: the whole school approach, direct social skills training, positive involvement in the community through community service learning, elimination of suspension coupled with logical natural consequences for inappropriate behavior, interagency coordination, safe school planning, gang identification, intervention and prevention, creating a positive environment and using a level system, positive acknowledgement of student success, violence intervention through the team approach, developing good community public relations, establishing a school business partnership, and accenting the positive. (Contains 10 references.) (SW)