Empathy Is Essential in Residential Treatment
We are quick to judge parents, even when we don’t know the backstory. In residential treatment, we work hard to recognize the parent’s effort in trying to find help for their child, no matter how they show up throughout the treatment process.
Why Is Caregiver Involvement Important in Child Therapy?
It is very important for the caregiver to be involved in their child's therapy. As the caregiver you provide the most treatment, your therapist needs your input, and the therapists are here to support you.
One Cup at a Time
The Cornerstone Café serves as a vocational program of Nexus-Onarga Family Healing where youth in residence build real-world skills by applying, interviewing, training and working at the café.
Rewriting the Story
Fostering or adopting a child can be one of the most rewarding experiences as you help a child rewrite the story of their future. We sat down with Melissa Moore, a foster and adoptive parent for Nexus-Kindred Family Healing, to ask her what rewriting the story means to her and her family.
Supporting a Child Exposed to Trauma
Childhood trauma does not define a child.
We know more about childhood trauma and its effect on the developing child than we ever have before. The resiliency of the developing brain provides an opportunity for us to intervene and provide healthy, safe, and nurturing experiences that grow the brain and help heal.
Childhood Trauma Is Not Just a Mental Health Problem
Exposure to continuous trauma causes the body’s alarm system to be easily triggered, releasing stress hormones that interfere with reasoning and activate that flight, fight, or freeze response. Children cannot learn or get along with friends or family members when living in a constant state of fight, flight or freeze. Rather, their goal is to survive.
What is Childhood Trauma?
He was six and it was his unexpected, quiet remark that clearly described the struggle, “I just feel like something bad is going to happen all the time.” For this boy, like many others, childhood included too many scary life experiences. He was well prepared to respond to danger at any time – he knew it well.
Three Ways to Support Suicide Prevention
Recently, I had a friend call and ask if I could help a co-worker who was struggling with his 15-year-old daughter. Of course, as someone in the mental health industry, I automatically said yes. Not knowing what was going to be asked of me, I called this father who was looking for advice and my heart sank as I listened to him talk.
