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48 Years of Expertise

Amity Circle Tree Ranch has offered an alternative approach to traditional alcohol and drug treatment for nearly 50 years for all individuals, families and children.

Circle Tree Ranch is located just east of Tucson, Arizona on a beautiful 60-acre campus nestled between the majestic Catalina and Rincon Mountain ranges in the lush and peaceful Sonoran Desert.

Our effective treatment approach is proven for individuals with a variety of needs which allows them to heal core traumas, identify strengths, improve self-esteem, learn life skills, and address the under-lying issues which contribute to addiction.

Circle Tree Ranch students learn and practice new, more functional ways of living by understanding, healing and relating to themselves, as well as others, with new, developing approaches to life.

The campus is a wellness sanctuary and learning environment optimized for individuals to regain their self-dignity, self-reliance and develop personal mastery as the foundation of their recovery from addiction, trauma, and co-occurring disorders. At Circle Tree Ranch, we teach the importance of community and development of authentic relationships as a key to recovery. Our culturally competent curriculum teaches and empowers our students to succeed in today’s world.

With 48 years of expertise in recovery with addictions and co-occurring disorders, the evidence based recovery model from which Circle Tree Ranch evolved has been researched for 50 years (please see NIDA research documents below). Amity has had numerous research projects conducted by NIDA, NIH, DHHS, SAMHSA and others on our successful methods and outcomes over the decades.

Since 1969

Amity was originally formed in 1969 in Tucson, Arizona… in the midst of America’s first opiate crisis. Today the opiate crisis eclipses the epidemic of the late 1960’s many times over. Parents desperate to find a solution to the opioid overdoses of their sons and daughters. Their desperation was amplified by the easy availability of heroin coming over the border — only 60 miles away. So this small group of concerned Tucsonans forged ahead to save lives and families. They  formed Tucson Awareness House, later renamed Amity, after Tucson Awareness’s applauded flagship residential campus… ‘Amity’. 

Although Amity has expanded to two other states over the years, we have provided effective addiction treatment recovery services at our Tucson campus, Circle Tree Ranch, continuously. Providing solutions to handling the problems associated with opiates, prescription drugs, cocaine, methamphetamine, and other drugs. Circle Tree Ranch has enormous success with all addictions, sexual, food, pornography, alienation and more. 

Amity Circle Tree Ranch has evolved from the internationally recognized therapeutic community model of treatment, which emphasizes a total change in lifestyle. Our model addresses the underlying traumas and behaviors that created the addiction. This approach goes well beyond merely dealing with drug usage. The result is a wholistic, whole person reconciliation. The whole person re-education and rehabilitation leads to long term success.  Five decades of research consistently tells us that longer stays in treatment lead to better outcomes and long term recovery success. 

Amity Circle Tree Ranch is committed providing services for individuals marginalized through culture or experience.

The Amity Foundation Mission

Amity Foundation is dedicated to the inclusion and habilitation of individuals, children, and families marginalized by homelessness, poverty, addiction, crime, racism, sexism, trauma, and violence.

Amity is committed to research, development, implementation, and dissemination of information regarding community building.

Remembrance, Resolution, Reconciliation, Restoration, Renewal

Misión

La Fundación de Amistad se dedica a la inclusión y habilitación de personas adultas, niños y familias marginados  a causa de su carencia de  vivienda , pobreza, problemas de adicción, crimen, discriminación racial o sexual, y violencia.

La Fundación de Amistad está entregada a la investigación, desarrollo, implementación y diseminación de información relativa a un mejor desarrollo del sentido comunitario.

Recordar, Resolver, Reconciliar, Restaurar, Renovarse

Circle Tree Ranch
3 Year CARF Accreditation

This accreditation decision represents the highest level of accreditation that can be awarded to an organization and shows our organization’s substantial conformance to the CARF standards. An organization receiving a Three-Year Accreditation has put itself through a rigorous peer review process. Amity Circle Tree Ranch has demonstrated to a team of surveyors during an on-site visit its commitment to offering programs and services that are measurable, accountable, and of the highest quality.

Amity Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization with offices at 721 N. 4th Avenue, Tucson Arizona. It has been providing Residential Teaching & Therapeutic Communities in Arizona, California and New Mexico since 1969.

Amity’s Circle Tree Ranch teaching community in Tucson, Arizona and Amity’s Employment Services in Los Angeles and San Diego, California.

Founded in 1966 CARF International is an independent, nonprofit accreditor of health and human services including behavioral health and employment services. CARF accreditation provides a visible symbol that assures the public of Amity’s commitment to continually enhance quality with a focus on the satisfaction of students.

CARF surveyors use a consultative approach during the survey process to assist in improving the quality of Amity’s offerings.  A survey team, selected on a match of the surveyors’ areas of expertise and Amity’s needs came to Amistad de Los Angeles and Vista Ranch to survey Department of Rehabilitation Employment Services in November 2015 and to Circle Tree Ranch to survey residential services in September 2016.  Each site was granted CARF certification for a three-year period, recognizing Amity for innovation.

There are numerous benefits to CARF accreditation: accredited providers enjoy fiscal savings as accreditation can signal financial stability; marketing advantages; reduction of exposure to risk in human resources, healthcare, governance, and finance; and access to an international network.

Learn about CARF International

Circle Tree Ranch CARF Profile

Circle Tree Ranch CARF Accredited Seal of Excellence

Quotes on Circle Tree Ranch by CARF Surveyors

“Amity Foundation Circle Tree Ranch clearly evidences dedication to a person-centered environment”

 

“Students are treated with dignity, equality, and respect for their individual cultures.”

 

“Amity Foundation uses innovative, evidence-based approaches and is recognized as one of the few formal curriculum-based teaching & therapeutic communities in the United States.”

 

Circle Tree Ranch CARF 3 Year Award is the highest that can be given any organization meeting or exceeding international standards.

Circle Tree Ranch Endorsements

National, International, Research Evidence Based Endorsements of Circle Tree Ranch.

Please take a moment to review these Amity Circle Tree Ranch, national, international, research, evidence based, rehabilitation and recovery endorsements.

Decades of Research and Endorsements for Amity Circle Tree Ranch Recovery model

Walter Cronkite

“Does drug treatment work… for the answer we went to one of the nation’s
most successful treatment programs. It’s called Amity.” 
— Walter Cronkite

“One of the finest programs

I have found throughout the U.S. and Europe.”
— Dr. Lewis Yablonsky
Emeritus Professor, Cal State Northridge;
author, The Therapeutic Community, Juvenile Delinquency, Fathers & Sons

“I am excited to see some new and alternative approaches such as we find at Amity in the United States. Amity puts emphasis on providing a safe place for participants to tell the truth. I am very impressed with Amity’s approach… Amity’s Curriculum is more than a curriculum about drug use, really it is a curriculum that teaches people how to become more human.”

— Alice Miller
internationally known psychiatrist
and author; “Drama of the Gifted Child,”
“For Your Own Good,”and “Thou Shalt Not Be Aware”

NIDA

National Institute on Drug Abuse

In the August, 2002 National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Research Report on Therapeutic Communities, the Amity Foundation was the only Teaching & Therapeutic Community mentioned by name.

NBC selected Circle Tree Ranch

Residential Recovery and Treatment Center as the setting for filming the 2005 production of Maximum Exposure titled “Mom’s on Meth”. Several women enrolled at Circle Tree Ranch courageously spoke of the causes and consequences of their methamphetamine addiction, putting a face on an epidemic destroying families and communities.

— NBC Universal, Inc

“For three decades, 

National Institute on Drug Abuse NIDA has conducted several large studies to advance scientific knowledge of the outcomes of drug abuse treatment as typically delivered in the United States. These studies found that participation in a Therapeutic Community was associated with several positive outcomes. For example, the Drug Abuse Treatment Outcome Study (DATOS), the most recent long-term study of drug treatment outcomes, showed that those who successfully completed treatment in a Therapeutic Community had lower levels of cocaine, heroin, and alcohol use; criminal behavior; unemployment; and indicators of depression than they had before treatment.” NIDA Research Report – Therapeutic Community: NIH Publication No. 02-4877, Printed August 2002.

“At the heart of the recovery process at Amity Circle Tree Ranch…are frequent encounter groups where residents talk openly about their deepest feelings. Guided by an Amity counselor, these groups explore painful, explosive issues which many residents have previously avoided, often by using drugs. The turning point comes when residents understand that their experiences have been shared by others.”
  — “The Making of a Drug-Free America:
Programs That Work,” Mathea Falco

Tucson Citizen

“For the last 24 years, Amity has helped addicts rebuild their lives through education and support at Circle Tree Ranch. The program is unique in that it is one of the few where children are allowed to stay with their parents, when appropriate. Amity attempts to address all issues facing those in the program, said Naya Arbiter, a consultant who has been involved since Circle Tree Ranch opened.”

— Gabrielle Fimbres, Tucson Citizen