Focusing on Healing
It is helpful for adults and children to have an objective place to share their thoughts and feelings about traumatic experiences. Often, people attempt to put the traumatic event and thoughts surrounding it behind them; consequently, this causes a rise in distress at any mention of it. In addition, children and adolescents are good at hiding the shame, guilt, and anger that often accompanies their traumatic experience. This can mask emotions that lead to the development of negative coping strategies and patterns that potentially affect long-term health, as well as the development and sustainability of the child/adolescent's relationships.
Mental health concerns range from long-term mental health disorders, anxiety disorder, behavioral disorders, substance abuse, and related disorders, and sex-related disorders.
Areas related to physical health concerns include heart disease, diabetes, neurological disorders/disease, liver disease, reproductive issues, sexually transmitted diseases, and sexual dysfunction.
- Counseling Services at Scotty's House target symptoms and triggers to reduce the likelihood of negative long-term mental, emotional, and physical impacts caused by trauma.
- Counseling is successful when the child/adolescent and the family are willing to actively participate. At Scotty's House, our counselors welcome discussions regarding concerns, discomforts, and scheduling issues that may hinder the client at any time from successfully participating in counseling services.
Counseling Offered By Scotty's House
Scotty’s House offers a wide variety of trauma-informed counseling services to help children and families on their journey toward healing.
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Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT)
TF-CBT is an evidence-based, structured therapy that focuses on helping children and adolescents recognize how their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors may have been shaped or altered by their traumatic experience. TF-CBT helps youth learn relaxation skills and establish positive coping skills while processing and re-shaping their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. This enables them to positively transform their experience from ‘victim’ to survivor.’
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Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
EMDR is an evidenced-based structured therapy that utilizes both hemispheres of the brain (through bilateral, left-right, movements) to successfully process traumatic memories and how the memory is stored in the brain. This type of adaptive processing reduces and eliminates the problematic symptoms associated with traumatic memories. EMDR therapy encourages the patient/client to briefly focus on the trauma memory while simultaneously experiencing bilateral stimulation (typically through eye movements, tones and/or tapping), which is associated with a reduction in the vividness and emotion associated with the trauma memory (from the American Psychological Association).
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Parent Support/Consultation
Caregivers are a critical component in building a child’s resiliency after trauma. Caring for a child who has experienced trauma brings its own challenges to the caregiving process, and caregivers may need supportive services as they navigate through this complex journey.
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Superhero Academy
At Scotty’s House, we know our visitors are brave and courageous. That's why we offer Superhero Academy: a therapeutic camp offered in the summer to children and adolescents who have received services at Scotty’s House, along with their non-offending siblings. The goal of Superhero Academy is to help children learn about their strengths and abilities while building confidence and increasing self-esteem. We strive to create a healthy, positive environment where our participants actively engage in therapeutic activities and processing while building healthy relationships with siblings, peers, and staff.
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Group Therapy
Group Therapy is an evidence-based therapy providing adolescents who have experienced trauma the opportunity to meet, share their stories, receive validation, support, encouragement, and education in a safe, therapeutic environment. Group therapy is also available for non-offending caregivers and non-offending family members. Groups are formed as needed and are time-limited in sessions.
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Play Therapy
Play Therapy is an evidence-based therapy for children who have experienced trauma but may not have the vocabulary or developmental capacity to completely express and/or understand their thoughts and feelings. Children use toys in the playroom to express their thoughts and emotions through play in order to process traumatic events and promote healing.
Counseling Is Important
Many parents and caregivers would like to put the traumatic event and thoughts surrounding it behind them, getting upset and not allowing their child to talk about what happened. Children and adolescents are good at hiding the shame, guilt, and anger that often accompany their traumatic experience. Unfortunately, masking emotions leads to the development of negative coping strategies and patterns, potentially affecting long-term health and the development or sustainability of the child/adolescent’s relationships. Mental health concerns range from long-term mental health disorders, anxiety disorder, behavioral disorders, substance abuse and related disorders, and sex-related disorders. Areas related to physical health concerns include heart disease, diabetes, neurological disorders/disease, liver disease, reproductive issues, sexually transmitted diseases, and sexual dysfunction.
- Counseling Services at Scotty’s House target symptoms and triggers to reduce the likelihood of negative long-term mental, emotional, and physical impacts caused by trauma.
- Counseling is successful when the child/adolescent and the family are willing to actively participate. At Scotty’s House, our Counselors welcome discussions regarding concerns, discomforts, and scheduling issues that may hinder the client at any time from successfully participating in counseling services.
What steps are involved in receiving therapy?
- The non-offending caregiver meets with counseling staff to fill out and complete necessary intake paperwork and gather information about the child/adolescent’s current functioning and behaviors. This information helps the counselor target areas of concern for treatment and ensures that the child/adolescent will be receiving the appropriate type of therapy.
- The child/adolescent, caregiver, and counselor will collaborate to create a plan to address specific trauma-related symptoms.
- Caregivers are asked to be available for participation during most sessions in order to add to their child/adolescent’s sense of caring and support during the healing process.
- Caregiver availability, participation, commitment, and support are vital components of the journey toward healing in all types of counseling offered at Scotty’s House. Caregivers may be asked to participate in one or more sessions without the child/adolescent present.