Author: Kerry Jamieson

Why Do Children Need Play? Dr. Anne Holland-Brown Explains.

Kerry Jamieson Latest News, Uncategorized

Play is one of the most essential components of positive childhood development. In many ways, playfulness is a child’s natural state. Through play, children learn, grow, develop, and come to understand the world around them. Play is a child’s language, and toys are their words.

On a practical level, play develops physical skills. Children learn dexterity as well as coordination through manipulating toys, by drawing and coloring, when building with blocks, etc. Play is important to healthy brain development. It is through play that children, from a very early age, engage and interact with the world around them.

Play allows children to use their creativity, too. Children are wonderful at imagining things and often spend time in the world of “make believe”. Providing them opportunities to dress up, paint their faces, or don costumes gives them the freedom to explore different experiences and play act at being someone else. This role playing is just one way in which children start to explore adult roles and appreciate the thoughts and feelings of others.

Play also reduces stress and helps your children grow emotionally. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, many children are feeling uncertain and insecure because their usual routines have been dramatically disrupted. Play is escapism for children, time when they can simply be joyful and silly. With so many stressors in their environments, play becomes a crucial outlet for fear and worry.

Play During the Pandemic

At the Center for Child Counseling, we recently welcomed seasoned psychologist Dr. Anne Holland Brown to our team. Anne has more than 26 years of mental/behavioral health experience working with economically-disadvantaged, racially and ethnically diverse populations of children who have experienced child maltreatment and other types of trauma. She answered some questions about the importance of play and Play Therapy.

Why is play so important?
Play is essential to all aspects of healthy child development. Play stimulates a child’s cognitive, physical, linguistic, and social-emotional development. Through play, children explore and learn about the world around them, including other people in their world—parents/caregivers, siblings, peers, etc. Play is also a great way for children to express their thoughts, feelings, memories, wants, and needs, especially when they do not have the language to do so effectively.

Are there different types of play?
Yes, play can be solitary or with another party or parties, such as with peers, siblings, or parents/caregivers. Children’s primary modes of play change as they develop, often evolving from more solitary forms of play to more interactive forms of play. Our first play experiences with others are typically with our parents/caregivers, and these playful interactions, such as peek-a-boo, are what help us to form safe, healthy attachments with our parents/caretakers and, in turn, with other individuals as we grow. Playing with others has been found to help children develop a better understanding of the reciprocal nature of relationships and turn taking, as well as an understanding and respecting that people outside of themselves may have different thoughts, feelings, wants, and needs than they have (empathy development).

What’s the difference between structured and unstructured play?
Structured play has set rules and parameters and is often directed by someone/something other than the child. From structured play activities, children can learn very valuable lessons, such as turn taking, cooperation, sharing, and fairness. It is critical, however, that children also be provided with time for unstructured or child-directed play. This type of play has been associated with fostering a child’s creativity, imagination, ability to entertain oneself, and independence.

How is play healthy?
Mental and physical health are inextricably combined. Aside from the vast benefits to the mind, play is essential to the body. Children need to be running, jumping, stretching, and tumbling. Childhood obesity is an epidemic in much of the world due to our increasingly sedentary lifestyles and the lack of opportunity in many places to play outside. Children need to spend time outdoors. Here, they connect with nature, find ever-changing environments to explore, and are free to move about with joyful exuberance!

What about when kids say: “I’m bored”?
Boredom is good for kids because it teaches them to entertain themselves. Children need to learn how to enjoy being alone and find ways to stay amused without constant external stimulation or structure. Free play teaches children to be creative and discover for themselves how to make their own fun – to find what they are good at and what they enjoy.

Are children struggling with isolation right now?
I believe so. Children are by nature social creatures; its challenging for them to have to cope with this level of isolation from friends and classmates. It’s critical that children experience peer interaction; technology like Zoom and Facetime can help with that. Some families have formed “social bubbles” – a limited and controlled group of people with whom their children can safely play, so they can continue to enjoy some level of peer socialization safely. At this time, parents also need to be extra sensitive to the losses that children are feeling, and be open to listening to their children’s concerns, as well as taking time out of each day to play with their child. Parents/caregivers want to make sure that family time isn’t just about home schooling, but that the family is doing playful and fun activities tighter to lessen the stress on everyone.

What’s the difference between play and Play Therapy offered by professional, clinical organizations like Center for Child Counseling?
Play Therapy uses a child’s natural affinity for play to help them process their thoughts, feelings, and memories. Grown-ups tend to think of talk therapy when they think of mental health treatment, but children don’t necessarily have the ability (language skills) or willingness to express themselves in this way. So, in Play Therapy, play replaces verbal communication and allows children express themselves in a way that feels safe and comfortable. At Center for Child Counseling our skilled professional therapists use Play Therapy to help children heal from trauma and work through other challenges/stressors. Through both unstructured and structured play therapy techniques, therapists help children safely share/process information; develop emotional intelligence and emotional regulation skills; learn coping, safety, and self-protection skills; and learn about and practice having safe and healthy relationships with others.

Any final thoughts?
People should not understate the importance and power of play, especially child-directed play. Such play positively impacts every single area of your child’s development and creates a solid foundation for children to grow into happy, healthy, and productive adults.

 

ACEs and Children’s Environments

Kerry Jamieson Blog, Latest News

The tumultuous first half of 2020 has raised many questions for us as individuals and as a society. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an economic crisis and thrown households into chaos while the protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis on May 25th have heightened interest in a range of social justice movements. The protests against George’s death (along with the deaths of many other people of color killed by law enforcement) and the attitudes and beliefs of the anti-Black Lives Matter movement have people questioning how racism continues to affect our lives and those of our children. It’s clear that not all communities in the United States are created equal and not all people are treated as equals. How do environments—both physical and atmospheric—affect our children and do Adverse Community Environments place our children at as much risk as Adverse Childhood Experiences?

For the first few years of life, children grow up within relatively small spheres of influence. They are most often surrounded by their parents or caregivers and siblings. Most childhood experiences occur within these small household environments. The original ACE study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Kaiser Permanente Insurance in the mid-1990s was chiefly concerned with these household environments when they began to identify whether experiences at home had a long-term detrimental effect on children’s future mental and physical health.

At that time, the research showed that sustained exposure to toxic stress had a clear correlation to lifelong mental and physical health impacts. In the absence of positive, buffering influences from the adults in a child’s life, the negative impacts could be dire. Studies connect child abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults. We have discussed these situations throughout this educational blog series, and it forms the basis of Center for Child Counseling’s work, but it’s time to look beyond the small sphere of influence of the household to the greater environments that might impact our children.

A Child’s Spheres of Influence

Think of a child as living in the middle of a series of concentric circles. The household makes up the circle that immediately surrounds the child. This circle is made up of the people with whom they interact in their everyday lives. The next circle might be the neighborhood in which they live or the school or kindergarten they attend. As they grow, children’s circles expand, they begin to include places further from home to which they travel and experiences away from home to which they were exposed. Often, distant influences enter children’s lives via television reports and the ever-present sway of the internet and social media.

Along with Adverse Childhood Experiences, countless recent studies have sought to look at Adverse Community Environments, another kind of ACE, that can dramatically affect the lives of our children and the outcomes they can hope to experience.

Clearly, children grow up in different communities and, in many ways, economic status determines the quality of those communities. According to a USA Today article entitled: Faces of Poverty: What Racial, Social Groups are More Likely to Experience It, “some factors outside of the control of the individual–including being a woman, black, Hispanic, a child, or a disabled person–are an indicator that one is more likely to live in poverty.” In fact, a study conducted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation showed that the ZIP code in which a child is born is often a better predictor of their future lives than their own genetic make up. You can view the organization’s life expectancy calculator by zip code here. In other words, nurture (environment) may well play a greater part in our success or failure than nature (our genetic material). You can learn more about “Epigenetics and ACEs” in our previous blog.

Infrastructure and Opportunity

The neighborhoods of lower income families are less well-stocked with community resources for success like quality schools, access to health care, social amenities and services like fire stations, libraries, child- and elder-care facilities, and opportunities for employment with fair wages. Lower-income neighborhoods are less likely to enjoy these advantages. Disadvantaged neighborhoods share certain physical characteristics such as lack of affordable, quality housing, few open spaces for play like parks, inadequate street lighting that can facilitate crime, poor maintenance of abandoned or derelict buildings, and even broken sidewalks that make walking difficult. These neighborhoods have less access to public transport and can even be what are known as “food deserts” where there is little access to nutritious, fresh food. People who live in these neighborhoods suffer disproportionate levels of stress and their children do, too. Children raised in disadvantaged neighborhoods are at greater risk for trauma and tend to have less opportunity to be exposed to positive, life-expanding experiences that other children may take for granted like visiting parks, zoos, museums, theaters, etc.

Over- and Under-Policing and Racism

Aside from the physical environments of such neighborhoods, there are social issues at play, too. Lower-income neighborhoods (which are often communities of color) are disproportionately policed. While deprivation and need may result in higher rates of crime in certain neighborhoods, it may also be possible that these neighborhoods are over-policed and therefore disproportionately represented in crime statistics. So, what exactly is over- and under-policing? It involves the presence of too many potentially negative police tactics and too few potentially positive ones. Over-policing generally results from the imposition of police control on individual or community activities in certain minority communities at a level unlikely to occur in the dominant society. Under-policing usually involves a lack of preventive and supportive police services that might make the police more welcome in a community. This means children in disadvantaged neighborhoods are exposed to the presence of an often overmilitarized police force. They are more likely to associate the police with distrust and a fear of law-enforcement, which perpetuates difficult relationships between citizens and law-enforcement, generation after generation.

There is no doubt that the United States is currently experiencing a groundswell movement for social justice. Systemic racism has been in the news frequently since the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent protests that are ongoing. This movement is a reflection of generations of fear and resentment over entrenched racism, the disproportionate policing of black communities, and the growing gulf between the wealthy and the disadvantaged in this country. According to the Pew Research Group, “the wealth gap between America’s richest and poorer families more than doubled from 1989 to 2016.”

While the original ACE study did not discuss racism (it was, after all, limited to just 10 questions), subsequent studies have directly asked about bullying and exposure to racism among children under the age of 18. The Philadelphia Urban ACE Study added racism, bullying, living in an unsafe neighborhood, exposure to violence outside the home, and involvement with the foster care system as potential ACEs. The results of this study confirms what most of us would expect: Exposure to racism can clearly be considered a profound adversity that will affect a child later in life. (ACEs Connection: “Racism and Its Impact as an ACE.”)

Health Disparities

Another glaring disparity in children’s environments is the type of healthcare received by the wealthy and that available to the disadvantaged. Access to quality healthcare is a basic human right; in a just society, healthcare should be available at affordable rates to all. However, studies show that children raised in disadvantaged environments are less likely to receive the quality care they need to meet their developmental milestones, especially in the first few years of life when monitoring these milestones is crucial. Health disparities are one of the areas of childhood that can make or break a child’s future.

Disparate health outcomes based on different communities or neighborhoods are an example of health inequity, which the World Health Organization defines as “differences in health status or in the distribution of health resources between different population groups, arising from the social conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age. Health inequities are unfair and could be reduced by the right mix of government policies.” Health inequity is a systematic difference in the opportunities groups have to achieve optimal health. Tens of thousands of children in the United States alone are born disadvantaged simply because the opportunity to achieve optimal health is not built into their communities.

Clearly, there exists in the United States a glaring and self-evident inequity among people; that inequity is drawn along economic and racial lines in most cases, with Native Americans, African-Americans, and Hispanic Americans often bearing the brunt of economic disadvantage, racism, health disparities, and the poor outcomes that so often come along with them.

Working for Solutions

It may seem like an insurmountable task–addressing the painful legacy of our past–but in Palm Beach County, we are making strides in the right direction. Community-wide training and initiatives through Birth to 22, United Way of Palm Beach County, Children’s Services Council of Palm Beach County, and many other partner agencies have been working on these issues for years now. Examples include community-wide training through the Racial Equity Institute and access to local workshops, like the one recently offered by the Youth Services Department of Palm Beach County on Implicit Bias and Microaggressions.

At Center for Child Counseling, we are proud to be a part of these efforts, from grassroots to grass-tops. Last year, with funding from Quantum Foundation, we released a White Paper on tackling the impact of ACEs in Palm Beach County. Combining years of experience, research, and a year-long process of gathering feedback from the community, including key stakeholders and experts, the paper (entitled: “Fighting ACEs in Palm Beach County: Opportunity and Levers for Change”) was released. It is specific to Palm Beach County and offers opportunities for improvement for the sectors that work with or touch the lives of children in our community.

Last month, our CEO released a statement, saying: “The current state of the world does not make our young black and brown children feel the safety they should. They deserve to feel safe and protected, especially by those in authority. Until we get to the root of systemic racism, many issues will remain unresolved in our society, especially the mental health of our children.” As an organization, we strive, along with our community partners, to create equity, for it is at the root of building healthy children, families, and communities.

The Future 

While some may argue that racism and inequality are “no longer a thing” in America, and others may question why the social justice protests they are seeing seem so “angry” or “violent”, the fact can no longer be ignored that many issues that have affected our children for hundreds of years have not been addressed, and we continue to suffer because of it. If we are interested in Adverse Childhood Experiences beyond the original 10 identified in the CDC/Kaiser Permanente study, then we must look not only to the households in which children are raised, but also to the communities in which they live, that wider circle of influence that affects their everyday development. Adverse Community Environments must be addressed if we hope to raise the kind of healthy, hopeful children who are free to pursue the happiness that is guaranteed to us in our Constitution and which is a part of the spirit of opportunity that the United States promises all of its people.

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CFCC Joins Florida Network to Build Healthier, More Resilient Children and Families

Kerry Jamieson Latest News, Uncategorized

Center for Child Counseling has been selected as Palm Beach County's new provider for the Stop Now and Plan (SNAP®) Program, an award-winning, evidence-based counseling program developed in Canada in the 1980s. Originally designed for boys 6 to 11 engaging in aggressive, anti-social behaviors, the program has expanded to include gender-specific programming for boys and girls under the age of 12, as well as SNAP® in Schools, a classroom-based group curriculum.

The Florida Network, in partnership with the Department of Juvenile Justice, has operated SNAP® in Florida since 2015; the program is now available in 20 counties throughout the state.

Center for Child Counseling is the outstanding choice to operate the program in Palm Beach County where we have focused on child and family mental health for the past 21 years. "We are proud to partner with The Florida Network to implement this program locally," says Renée Layman, CEO at Center for Child Counseling. "We know that children who start engaging in negative behaviors as pre-teens are more likely to continue these behaviors into adulthood. SNAP works with children and families to promote prosocial behaviors and positive interactions. Since we focus on prevention and early intervention in all our work, SNAP's approach aligns perfectly with our mission."

SNAP® uses an evidence-based behavioral framework that teaches children struggling with behavioral issues, along with their parents, to effectively regulate their emotions and use self-control and problem-solving skills. Our trained team will be able to implement SNAP® virtually, supporting children, teachers, and parents during this stressful time.

Lauren Maldonado, Clinical Program Manager for the Florida Network says her organization believes in SNAP® because it not only empowers youth, but also their parents, caregivers and siblings, positively impacting the whole community. “SNAP® offers parents the opportunity to intervene and encourage their children to stay in control and keep their problems small using the skills that they’ve learned.”

SNAP® short and long-term outcomes include:

  • Teach strategies to increase pro-social skills,
  • Help youth stay in school and out of trouble by making better choices,
  • Promote the immediate decrease in delinquency and aggression,
  • Encourage positive interactions with teachers, peers, and family members,
  • Reduce stress and anxiety,
  • Improve relationships between children and their parents, and
  • Encourage youth to say “no” to an unhealthy or troubled future.

For more information about SNAP®, CLICK HERE.

Your Child’s Mental Health vs. the Coronavirus

Kerry Jamieson Latest News, Uncategorized

There is no doubt that we’re living in challenging times. Never before in modern recorded history have billions of people been simultaneously shut down in their homes for the public good. In the United States, “safer at home” orders were issued across the country and schools closed, which affected approximately 50.8 million public school children. This complete upheaval of their usual routine has left many young children feeling anxious and uncertain. 36.5 million Americans have lost their jobs, so many parents and caretakers are struggling with financial pressures. Add to that the strain of being responsible for their children’s daily schooling (not to mention their own rising rates of anxiety induced by the stressful circumstances), many parents find themselves overwhelmed. It’s unfortunate that just when our children need us most, many of us are struggling with our own mental health. Never before has resilience counted more!

Strain Exacerbates Abuse

This pandemic has caused a kind of forced camaraderie that has brought out the best in many families. Some find value in having extra time to spend together and are innovating fun family activities to enjoy together. Others are undeniably feeling the strain of too much “togetherness”. Most parents seem to cope fairly well with meeting their children’s basic needs, however, the extra strain of schooling while trying to maintain a home-based work routine is incredibly taxing. According to a report aired by CNN on May 17th, reports of child abuse are down; that’s a bad sign. The abuse is undoubtedly occurring at record rates but not being reported as effectively. One major reporting segment–teachers and school staff–are not reporting right now as they are simply not seeing their children due to school closures. “When children are no longer visible to the vast majority of people who are trained and required to report, and then you see this kind of decline, we get super concerned,” said Melissa Jonson-Reid, a professor of social work research at Washington University in St. Louis.

We know that the experiences that’s surround children during their crucial formative years can dramatically influence their brain development and may result in lifelong physical and mental repercussions. When trauma is prolonged and sustained, these Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) result in damaging toxic stress. Research shows that the best way to counteract ACEs is to ensure that children have at least one stable, positive adult influence in their lives. This person serves as a buffer against adversity and can mitigate some of the negative affects of toxic stress.

For this reason, one of the most effective ways to ensure childhood stability is to reinforce and support the mental health of the adults in children’s lives. Mentally healthy adults really are the most important factor in developing mentally healthy children. So how do we support adults during the coronavirus outbreak as a way of supporting their children?

Established Wisdom Holds True

Working parents need to preserve their own mental health and sanity during these times. This advice may seem commonplace now but it’s worth restating.

  1. Ensure your you are receiving proper nutrition; eat healthy food regularly.
  2. Sleep soundly. Periods of high anxiety can result in sleep disruption. Try to ensure that you get at least 7 to 8 hours of quality sleep at night. Get guidelines from the Sleep Foundation here.
  3. Exercise daily while respecting social distancing guidelines; try to get outside and walk as much as possible. While gyms may be closed, walking, biking, and jogging are all free.
  4. Avoid abusing substances including alcohol. At times like these, some people turn to substances to help them cope but this only results in added problems and complications. Find helpful advice on the subject here.
  5. Discard what isn’t working for you. If a regular activity suddenly feels like a burden, leave it for now. Be kind and gentle to yourself. Practice turning your inner voice–that may be self-critical or worrying–into the voice of a true friend who only encourages and calms you.

Try to Simply “Be”

Many parents feel as if they’re failing their children at the moment. Most parents aren’t qualified mathematics teachers! And nor should they be expected to be. One piece of sound advice is as follows: how you are being with your child is more important than what you’re doing with them. In other words, the atmosphere or emotional environment in which your family is interacting needs to be one of security, protection, and open communication. Academic prowess can take a back seat to quality time spent reassuring, communicating, and simply laughing together.

Communicate Perspective

Children will naturally have questions about why things have changed so dramatically and so suddenly. Open communication really is the best approach. Talk in an age-appropriate way with your children about the COVID-19 pandemic. Our FREE, online training entitled: “Supporting Children During COVID-19” may help you. You can be honest about what is happening but reassuring at the same time. Let them know that plans are being worked out and that things will get better, although you should acknowledge that they may not be exactly the same as before. Avoid lying to your child in order to protect them. They are absorbing information (even if you are aware of it) from new stories, social media, and online interactions with schoolmates.

Perspective can be a great help. For all of human history, people have braved epidemics, wars, and famine, and have survived and thrived. The current situation is not forever; as the old adage goes: “this, too, shall pass.” The natural impatience of young children makes these arguments hard to fathom but there is comfort in knowing that this situation is not unique.

Routines Bring Control and Alleviate Stress

Routine is especially useful to children. It makes them feel secure to know what is coming next and what is expected of them. Establishing different routines for school days versus weekends is useful. A varied schedule that includes time for school lessons,  physical activity, including outdoor time (where possible), fun and games (music, arts and crafts, board games, or other play), and then free time when your child can choose what they wish to do. This timetable should be interspersed with healthy meals and familiar activities like bath time, story time, and any other routines your child may be used to. You may benefit from our FREE online training entitled: “How to Structure Your Child’s Day for Success”.

Mom and Dad’s Work is a Real Thing!

For the first time, many parents are having to explain to their children that they really do need to actually work from home! Children who are used to their parents going out to work may find it more difficult to respect the idea that, although their parents are present in the house, they may be unavailable to communicate because they are working. This is a valuable lesson for children to learn at any age. If they are a little older, it might be appropriate to discuss the fact that as an adult you have responsibilities other than your family and that you need to honor your commitments. Of course, it’s vital that you try to carve out enough quality time to meet your children’s social and emotional needs.

Help Your Child’s to Exercise Their Resilience Muscle

The good news is that children are extraordinarily resilient. Their ability to bounce back from adversity is astonishing. As an adult, you play a key role in this. Resilience is a muscle that needs to be exercised to grow. You can reinforce your child’s independence, autonomy, and sense of self-esteem by pointing out things they are able to do and achieve on their own. Always remind them that temporary failures are not permanent; they will get another chance to try again. A resilient child is one who is far more likely to face life’s ups and downs with courage and strength. Studies show that children who have experienced difficulties and learned to overcome them fare better than overly-protected children when they enter the harsher adult world.

See This Time as a Unique Gift

We may never again be in a world where the pause button has been pressed. How can we spend this time wisely? Do you have  a home-based project you have wanted to do for years but never got around to? Try tackle it now! Have you always wanted to try a skill like cooking, gardening, or learning a new language? The chance may not come again! Online, people have shared stories of cleaning out their closets, painting their bedrooms, training their pets, writing their first short story, etc. – all these accomplishments provide the antidote to feelings of hopelessness and helplessness.

Our children are looking to us to let them know that things are okay. The messages we are giving them now will stay with them for many years, possibly forever. What an opportunity to build our own resilience by teaching it to our children! In the coming years, we will reap what we have sown during these times. Try to make sure your household reaps a stronger family so you can emerge from the crisis not as victims but as survivors.

Sign up now for news, events, and education about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and promoting resilience.

By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive emails from: Center for Child Counseling, 8895 N. Military Trail, Palm Beach Gardens, FL, 33410. You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email.

Fighting ACEs Amid the Pandemic

Kerry Jamieson Uncategorized

When a pandemic hits, and suddenly nothing is the same, it’s a sobering opportunity to take a deep breath and to take stock. It’s not the time to focus on fear and panic but rather a unique opportunity to identify how exactly your organization can be of service during times of extreme stress. As a nonprofit, our mission does not change. Rather than spiraling down in anxiety and fear of the unknown, we see the chance to examine every area of our work to find ways for our unique skills to benefit the community, now and in the uncertain future.

At Center for Child Counseling, we specialize in childhood trauma and building a more trauma-informed community. We are in the business of Fighting ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences). We are not a food bank or a homeless outreach program, although we’re happy to partner with other agencies to help our clients secure those services. What we do best is work with children and families impacted by trauma by helping them to build practical skills and strengthen their own resilience. Almost everybody can use this kind of help in the current climate! So, where can we turn our efforts while continuing to operate with laser focus on our mission?

It all comes back to basics. Children raised in homes of intense, sustained stress can have their neurological development impaired. Trauma can affect the lifelong mental and physical health of growing children. Right now, our children are experiencing extreme stress. Even normally stable households may be facing unexpected circumstances like unemployment or problems paying bills for the first time. We know that rates of domestic violence and child abuse rise when stress increases.

Our mission, now and for many years to comes, will be to cope with the fallout of this pandemic on our children and families.

We’ve looked at the full spectrum of need in our area of expertise and identified the places where our unique skills can be a part of the solution. From individual children, to families, to parent-teachers, to the community in general, we’re working every day in the most innovative ways possible to share our knowledge and deepen our impact.

…Switching to Telehealth

Several years ago, we saw the benefit of exploring telehealth. Nonprofits who don’t embrace technology will not survive. We secured a grant from Quantum Foundation and partnered with Dr. Eugenia Millender to conduct a pilot roll-out of a telehealth platform. At that time, ten senior staff members were identified as champions for this work. The timing could not have been more opportune. When the Coronavirus pandemic hit and schools closed, those ten employee champions immediately began training our full complement of staff on the telehealth platform. We pivoted quickly to the new telehealth model, continuing to serve our clients and tackle our waiting list.

There were challenges. Some parents struggled with barriers to care like an unfamiliarity with technology, unreliable internet service, and difficulty executing the required permissions and consents to receive services. Our skilled therapists, who are usually hands-on and fully engaged physically in their Play Therapy sessions, now had to rely on other techniques like drawing, music, and remote games to interact with their clients.

Even over the short time of a few weeks, people are becoming more used to online interactions and more familiar with video conferencing technology. In the past, when a child was introduced into the child welfare system via Childnet, only 49-50% of families attended in-person therapy sessions. That has risen to 90-95% now that a virtual option is available to them. It’s been a steep learning curve and will continue to be one, although we believe telehealth will, in some way, augment our traditional services for a portion of our clients when things return to a more normal state.

…Making an Impact with Individual Children

As we work with our clients, we’re seeing the uncertainty and fear of Coronavirus manifest itself. One client recently disclosed to his therapist during a session that he had a degree of suicidal ideation related to body image issues. She was able to process the issues, screened him for his current level of risk, created a safety plan (with a list of triggers, coping skills, steps to take/numbers to contact, if needed, etc.). The therapist then had a conference call with the boy and his mother to share the plan and go over ways to ensure safety. The boy’s mood was positive at the end of the session and he expressed hope about his goals and future progress. The therapist conducted regular phone check-ins over the next few days and will follow up regularly, as needed. Since isolation and altered routines can exacerbate existing conditions, we’re vigilantly guarding all our children’s well-being and we’re equipping parents to be vigilant, too.

…Offering Free Help to Families

The hunger for sound advice from experts in the mental health field has skyrocketed as families look for answers to emerging dynamics they haven’t encountered before. The changing structure of everyday life has turned relationships topsy-turvy. Anxiety and stress among all family members is on the rise. For this reason, we’ve made many of our Institute for Clinical Training online learning modules available for free. These workshops offer practical guidance from licensed mental health professionals on everyday topics that are immediately useful to parents and families, including:
• How to Help My Child Listen
• How to Structure Your Child’s Day for Success

…Providing Support to New Parent-Teachers

Unexpectedly, millions of parents across the country find themselves as full-time teachers amid the pandemic. Center for Child Counseling already works with teachers in Palm Beach County. We’re co-located in 22 schools as well as childcare and community centers, so we are familiar with the stresses and needs of professional educators. But the unexpected situation of thousands of inexperienced and stressed-out parent-teachers posed a new challenge. For anyone in a position of teaching (or simply being with) a child, we have updated our manual entitled “A Way of Being with Children: Managing Feelings and Behaviors in the Classroom and Beyond”. Every parent in the country will benefit from the vital, practical information the guide provides on attitude and acceptance, childhood development, limit setting, and managing behavior.

…Strengthening Community Supports

In times of increased stress, we see a rise in domestic violence, substance abuse, and as a result a rise in the number of children being removed from their homes. Housing teens removed from their families amid a pandemic, especially where social distancing is required, is a huge challenge. The Department of Fish and Wildlife, which runs summer camp programs, will be taking care of children in Okeechobee this summer, but they knew their staff and counselors would need help to work with children who may be traumatized and require extra attention beyond the needs of an average camper. In partnership with the Department of Children and Families, the Director of our Childhood Trauma Response Team, Anne-Marie Brown, responded immediately by providing training for these care providers. This vital expertise will help these traumatized children from being traumatized again.

In every way possible, we are #FightingACEs and Coronavirus in a way that makes the most sense to us as a childhood mental health agency. The fight will not be over soon – not when “safer at home” directives are removed, and not next year when Covid-19 is hopefully under greater control. The implications of the first few months of 2020 will be felt for a very long time. We can only keep doing what we do, helping each child, each family, each new parent-teacher, and the community at large to understand Adverse Childhood Experiences and learn better ways of being with children. Our message is simple and clear; in times of prosperity and of crisis, it remains the same: The future must be faced, so let’s face it armed with knowledge, hope, and compassion.

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Innovation in a Crisis

Kerry Jamieson Uncategorized

When most people think about science, they think about how our physical bodies work, how all the systems operate together, the biology, physics, and chemistry of life…but science is a big part of mental health, too. At the Center for Child Counseling we use the latest scientific breakthroughs on the child’s developing brain to help children, teens, and their caregivers address trauma and adversity while building resilience. We are Palm Beach County’s preeminent agency in child mental health, from birth to aged 18.

We’ve always used best practices, neurobiology, and even epigenetics (how genes are coded and expressed) in our fight against ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences). We operate 8 programs throughout Palm Beach County, serving over 4,000 children and their families each year. We go to where the children are. That means operating in co-located sites in schools, community and childcare centers as well as our own Play Therapy rooms and our clients’ homes. Due to the Coronavirus outbreak, all those avenues of reaching children are closed to us, but we’re resilient, too!

We’ve quickly pivoted to a telehealth model. Our therapists are all still working with our clients using HIPAA compliant apps. We’re using online training and videos more and more, creating fresh content every day. While we focus on the mental health of children, that often means working with the whole family. Right now, families are going to need the support of mental health professionals more than ever. Research shows that periods of high stress exacerbate issues like family dysfunction, substance abuse, domestic violence, and child abuse, so right now we need to protect Palm Beach County’s children in every way possible.

We’ve quickly responded to requests for resources by adding pages full of practical hints and tips to our website (general help and crisis-specific material). These links include home schooling help, resources that encourage parents and caregivers to practice self-care and manage their own anxiety, book suggestions and fun, educational videos for kids like what the Coronavirus is all about and why we need to practice healthy habits like hand washing. Many think tweens and teens stay connected via digital devices so may not feel they’re struggling with “social distancing” but they are. In fact, helping ‘quaranteens’ may be some parents’ biggest challenge. We have online resources just for them, too!

As a science-based nonprofit, we know that science is going to be the solution to this pandemic and the science of resilience is at the heart of what we all can do to stay mentally strong and healthy in the meantime.

Renée Layman, CEO
Center for Child Counseling

ACEs and Intergenerational Trauma

Kerry Jamieson Blog, Fighting ACEs PBC, Latest News

When inadequate parenting skills and toxic environments are passed down from parent to child, a cycle of hopelessness and helplessness can ensue. How can we address the deep needs of children and families embroiled in intergenerational trauma?

A child’s mental health mirrors a family’s mental health. For the first years of life, up until he/she goes to school, a child experiences the world through their parents’ activities; their life is mostly home-based where they are surrounded by a small group of familiar caregivers. For most children, this leads to strong, healthy attachment with their parents and familial bonds that last a lifetime. Ideally, children are nurtured, supported, encouraged, and positively reinforced. They leave their home equipped to face the world and interact appropriately with peers, employers, and  future romantic partners. This is the ideal scenario. Most of us experienced some disruption of this process, a degree of household dysfunction or unexpected change such as a divorce or the loss of a parent. Because positive buffers like a supportive relationship with the remaining parent were in place, we adapted, used our resilience to bounce back, and soldiered on successfully.

However, for some households, the degree of dysfunction, abuse, and neglect is so extreme and relentless that it reaches traumatic levels, affecting the physical health and brain development of the young children who are surrounded by it. When these children grow up, if their Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) remain unaddressed, they are vulnerable to repeating the patterns they learned in their own childhoods. They bring dysfunction into the lives of their children and so it continues. This is called the cycle of intergenerational trauma.

Intergenerational trauma isn’t just a pattern of behavior that’s learned and repeated. It’s a brain development issue. Some family members may exhibit a behavior called “learned helplessness”. A person with this condition accepts a feeling of powerlessness in the face of repeated and seemingly insurmountable adverse experiences. Eventually, the person may stop trying to improve their situation, even when positive alternatives are presented. Recent studies in neuroscience seem to indicate that the brain’s default setting is to assume lack of control and that it is the “helpfulness”, solution-seeking, and resilience that are actually learned.

Based on these scientific principles, all of Center for Child Counseling’s programs are trauma-informed and help to address deep-seated trauma through evidenced-based treatment approaches. However, one program is focused on using a distinctive, nationally-recognized approach: Child First. Child First, was developed in Connecticut by Darcy Lowell, MD and Palm Beach County was the first replication of the program out of the state. Funded by the Children’s Services Council of Palm Beach County, Child First works with our most vulnerable young children and their caregivers.

Clarissa DeWitt, Senior Clinical Director, describes intergenerational trauma as a situation where a portion of the population has experienced adversity going back for decades, to the point where the adversity is at a neurological level, affecting the development of young children’s growing brains and even influencing the expression of genes, which genes are “turned on” and which ones are “turned off”. “Going back through the family tree, we can see historical trauma being passed from adult to child until it’s literally embedded in their genetic makeup,” explains DeWitt.

The Child First program focuses on the needs of the child while also addressing how past trauma impacts the relationships between parents or caregivers and their children. “If we can get the parent to a place where they can understand their own story and how it has affected their choices and parenting style and move them towards being more present and adaptive parents to their children, we have intervened to stop the cycle. If each generation gets a little better,” says DeWitt. “We can alter the course of society’s future.”

The program uses a dyadic approach, working with BOTH caregiver and child in a relationship-based environment. Often, caregivers in these traumatized homes have never seen what a healthy parent-child relationship looks like, so the therapist models those behaviors for them to learn from and imitate. The parallel process, children learning and improving their behaviors while their caregivers learn better parenting skills, works to help both parties. Building strong parent-child bonds is crucial, especially during times of stress when children look to their parents for guidance and reassurance. The current Coronavirus pandemic will bring tremendous stress to already-taxed family situations and studies indicate that we can expect to see a rise in cases of domestic violence, substance abuse, and child neglect. Our children need your help to provide services for these kinds of deeply-rooted issues right now and in the days and weeks to come.

Child First is a part of the Healthy Beginnings System of Care, an entity created by the Palm Beach County taxpayers in the 1980s. Funding is distributed via the Children’s Services Council which has a mission of ensuring all children in Palm Beach County grow up free from abuse and neglect and in a developmentally appropriate manner. Those tax dollars go to programs like Child First to help very young children by changing the trajectory of their lives. Families referred for help go through a centralized intake process via Home Safe and Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies, then they are connected to services with the most appropriate agency for their needs. Center for Child Counseling’s Infant Mental Health Program is also a part of this system of care.

The work managed by Child First is not typical clinical work. On average, a family will stay with the program for a year; some need a year and a half or even two years to make progress. Two people are assigned to support the family: a clinician and a care coordinator. “When your family is steeped in current difficulties, it’s hard to think about processing your past trauma,” says DeWitt. “We focus on the idea of stabilizing the family and getting them to a more secure place in order to be ready to do the therapeutic work with the clinician. It’s a unique model requiring specially-qualified therapists with hands-on experience and a depth of understanding.”

Initially the Child First team meet with their client families twice a week. There is a lengthy two-month assessment period. “We don’t motivate to change things we don’t understand. We have to appreciate the dynamics of the family and understand why they embrace some suggestions and resist others.”

Because this deep therapeutic work is intense and time consuming, it requires the dedication of very special and specialized mental health professionals. Recently, Center for Child Counseling’s Child First program expanded, after absorbing the program serving southern Palm Beach County. Located in Lake Worth, Clinical Director Karen Haag brings years of experience to Center for Child Counseling. An additional four teams will double our organizational capacity to use this effective model.

Although intergenerational trauma is an enormous challenge, we can end on a hopeful note. The concept of the family unit has existed for as long as human beings have. It is the cornerstone of human survival, connection, and support. It has evolved over time. We now embrace all sorts of family units beyond the traditional nuclear family and research indicates that love beats all when it comes to raising healthy children. The joy of family should be celebrated. The benefits of keeping families connected is enormous. Within the nurturing care of multi-generational families, we learn so much. Who didn’t learn some skill, hobby, or good habit from their grandparents? For many, recalling times with multiple generations of family members are their most treasured memories. Let’s keep our families strong and cherish the irreplaceable lessons and the love they can give us when family relationships are working well.

Sign up now for news, events, and education about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and promoting resilience.

By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive emails from: Center for Child Counseling, 8895 N. Military Trail, Palm Beach Gardens, FL, 33410. You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email.

Center for Child Counseling Expands – Child First Program in South County

Kerry Jamieson Uncategorized
Child First Clinicians Vanessa Gomez and Cynthia Nicholas

Center for Child Counseling is delighted to announce that we have expanded, doubling the capacity of our Child First Program. Funded by the Children’s Services of Palm Beach County, Child First is a national, evidence-based, two-generation model that works with very vulnerable young children and families, providing intensive, home-based services.

When young children grow up in environments where there is violence, neglect, mental illness, or substance abuse, the stress can be toxic to their developing brains. The good news is that we can intervene to prevent this damage. Scientific research demonstrates that we can make a difference if we:
• Work to connect families to community-based services that alleviate their stress
• Build strong, loving, parent-child relationships that protect and heal the brain from trauma

The most unique aspect of the program is the special way it uses a dyadic (two-way) approach to helping children by also addressing issues their parents might be experiencing or have experienced in the past.

To help a child we must help the family. All parents/caregivers want to give their children the best possible opportunity to succeed. When caregivers face multiple stressors and their basic needs are not met, it is difficult for them to focus on the emotional and developmental needs of their children.

  • Caregivers’ own life experiences influence their perceptions and understanding of their child, and their ability to nurture and support their child’s development.
  • Caregivers and children are best served within a “system of care” in which assessment, access to services, treatment, follow-up, and relationships with community-based services are facilitated by well-trained professional staff.

Impact of Child First

Rigorous research shows that Child First families become stronger and healthier. Results of a randomized, controlled trial demonstrated that at 12 month follow-up, Child First intervention families had strong positive outcomes:

  • Child First children were 68% less likely to have language problems and 42% less likely to have aggressive and defiant behaviors.
  • Child First mothers had 64% lower levels of depression and/or mental health problems.
  • Child First families were 39% less likely to be involved with child protective services, which was sustained at 33% at 3 year follow-up.
  • Child First families had a 98% increase in access to community services supports.
Child First Clinical Director Karen Haag

Center for Child Counseling is excited to welcome the Child First to our organization, serving vulnerable young children in Southern Palm Beach County.

Currently, the team includes:
• Karen Haag – Clinical Director
• Maria Matos – Data Specialist
• Cynthia Nicholas – Clinician
• Vanessa Gomez – Clinician
• Deidre Phillips – Care Coordinator

We are also pleased to announce that we are building capacity to serve more families! We are hiring Clinicians and Care Coordinators to serve Southern Palm Beach County.

Contact us to learn more or submit your résumé.

At Center for Child Counseling, Safari, Ltd’s Toys Are More Than Just Playthings

Kerry Jamieson Latest News

Center for Child Counseling uses Play Therapy as the foundation for most interventions used at the organization, since play is one of the most effective ways of working with children. Situations addressed at Center for Child Counseling may span several generations, with abusive or neglectful practices passed down from parent to child, over and over again.

Effectively addressing a child’s mental health often involves working with the whole family. And, when intergenerational trauma is deeply engrained, families may require specialized interventions – sometimes in clients’ homes but also in the Center for Child Counseling’s Play Therapy rooms located at offices and schools across Palm Beach County.

Center for Child Counseling’s Child First Program is specially trained to work with young clients and their families. On March 2nd, Child First at Center for Child Counseling, funded by the Children’s Services Council of Palm Beach County, expanded, with four additional teams serving Southern Palm Beach County. With this expansion, Center for Child Counseling now has offices located in Lake Worth, including a new Play Therapy room! So, the donation from Safari, Ltd. came at the perfect time to help set up that special location where children can express themselves through play.

Children, especially those who may be dysregulated or “acting out” can be especially hard on their toys and Center for Child Counseling’s playrooms see hundreds of children each month, all eager to interact with the toys. Investments in toys and supplies need to be made over and over again.

Established in 1982, Safari, Ltd. creates hand-painted learning toys for kids — from dinosaurs, to wild animals, to mythical creatures. Their detailed models are beautiful to look at, so realistic, and very durable. They help children understand the world they live in. They fuel the imagination, promote creativity, and give hours and hours of playtime fun. They are the perfect addition to the organization’s Play Therapy rooms – and are creating the words that children need to use to express their feelings, especially after traumatic experiences.

“We cannot thank Safari, Ltd. enough for their ongoing support,” says Stephanie De La Cruz, Clinical Director of Clinical Services at Center for Child Counseling. “This isn’t the first time they’ve been so generous to our agency and we’re delighted. We always say that play is a child’s language and toys are their words. These toys will help our children work through so much as they learn to express themselves and manage their feelings in positive ways.”

Center for Child Counseling’s CEO, Renee Layman, added her appreciation. “This donation helps our children and it helps us as an agency because these are critical supplies for our work – and it is a costly investment. Now they’ve been given to us – thanks to Safari’s generosity.”

The toys will bring joy and an outlet for expression to the over 3,800 children Center for Child Counseling serves each year.

 

Managing Your Child’s Coronavirus Fear

Kerry Jamieson Latest News, Uncategorized

Tips for Coping with Coronavirus and the Fallout From Media Coverage

The Coronavirus continues to dominate the news and fear is spiraling across the country. Many people, especially parents, want to find the crucial balance between complacency and panic. With many questions still unanswered, here is what we DO know, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC):

  • The virus is thought to spread mainly from person to person.
    • Between people who are in close contact with one another (often within about 6 feet)
    • Through respiratory droplets (minutely visible and invisible) produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes
    • These droplets can land in the mouths or noses of people who are nearby or possibly be inhaled into the lungs
  • Symptoms appear 2–14 days after exposure and include fever, cough, and shortness of breath. Some people lose their sense of taste and/or smell.
  • People are most contagious when they are already sickest, although we know that spread from asymptomatic people is possible, too.
  • There are now more than 1,1 million reported cases in the United States (and 64,000+ known deaths). These numbers will keep rising until the virus is contained or a successful treatment is launched.
  • The mortality rate is low relative to other deadly viruses like SARS (7%) and Ebola (25-90%). Coronavirus has an estimated 1% mortality rate if you take into account that mostly those showing symptoms are getting tested and therefor the number of deaths is a percentage of only those people and not a percentage of everyone who has the disease but is asymptomatic.
  • Those who have sadly passed away as a result of this outbreak are disproportionately older people or those with compromised immune systems or diseases like hypertension, cardiovascular disease, or diabetes.
  • Children are not disproportionately affected and tend to have very mild symptoms. They are far less at-risk for severe complications than adults and seniors.
  • The disease has no vaccine at the moment but can be treated by medical professionals.

How to Handle this Epidemic with Your Children

World-renowned psychotherapist Dr. Debbie Ellis and expert child therapists from the Center for Child Counseling offer the following advice: Children learn by example and are most likely to mimic your reactions to most events beyond their experience. If you panic, they’re likely to panic. Children are very intuitive. Even if you feel you’re keeping the worst from them, they are picking up your emotions, responses, and attitudes and making up their own stories to explain things. It’s better to offer information in a calm way that’s age-appropriate.

Empower your children by simply using this scary time to reinforce lifelong, healthy habits.

Hand Washing is Key

Set a good example by always insisting on washing your hands for at least 20 seconds, that’s about the same amount of time it takes to sing the “Happy Birthday to You” song twice…so use that if you think your kids will find it funny. The water doesn’t need to be scalding hot, which might discourage kids, so keep it warm and make sure to wash palms, fingers, nails, and the backs of their hands. If your child does not like to wash their hands or use hand sanitizers, make it fun for them. Give them a bucket full of soapy warm water and put some toys and cups into it (this is also a great sensory play). You can also decorate your hand sanitizer bottle with craft supplies; make it into a funny person or their favorite animal. Art is always a great family activity.

Sneeze and Cough into Your Folded Elbow

Explain to your children that they should always sneeze and cough into the fold of their elbow. This prevents germs getting on your hands which are far more likely to spread them around because we use our hands to touch objects others are also going to touch like doorknobs and shopping trolleys. If you have a young child (younger than 2) who does not understand this, always carry wipes and hand sanitizer with you. Try to keep young children’s hands out of their mouths. Instead of chewing on their fingers, they can chew on a healthy snack (frozen fruits are great).

Stay Home When Sick

Coronavirus resembles other respiratory illnesses. You should keep your children home from school (and seek medical advice) if they display any symptoms or have trouble with their breathing, especially if they are contagious with a fever, coughing, and sneezing. These guidelines apply to colds and the ’flu as well as Coronavirus.

Here are some tips for parents on managing media-fueled fear over Coronavirus:

1) Don’t Panic
Children sense our emotions, even when we try very hard to hide them; children “just know”. Many of them act out and most of them will develop anxiety from watching their anxious parents’ behaviors. Stress increases cortisol levels in the body which causes inflammation that can weaken the immune system. This is true of adults as well as children.

2) Do Educate & Communicate
Be open with your child; don’t try to hide anything for them because they will find out anyway, whether it’s from a school peer or TV. Explain that there are many microscopic germs and viruses in this world. If they are old enough to know about colds and the ‘flu, explain that Coronavirus is similar to those sicknesses. There are many fun, animated, kid-friendly videos on YouTube about germs, viruses and bacteria. These can be helpful in talking with your child.

3) Don’t Overreact with Masks and Gloves
You risk traumatizing your child and creating a ‘germophobe’ if you wear unnecessary medical equipment. It’s not only visually scary, especially to very young children, but it promotes heightened anxiety and induces stress. Overreacting only makes your children feel as if catching the disease is imminent and inevitable and ramps up fear. Remember, your anxiety perpetuates your child’s anxiety.

4) Do Moderate Your Language
Try not to use threats like: “If you don’t wash your hands, you are going to get sick!” That kind of language only increases your child’s anxiety and threats do not work. Instead, you can say something like: “Let’s wash our hands so we stay healthy!”

5) Do Use this Opportunity to Promote Healthy Habits
Make sure your child gets enough sleep, eats healthy snacks, gets enough vitamins (especially Vitamin C and D), and has limits on his/her screen time. Acknowledge the event but avoid binging on negative or frightening news stories. Often, exposure to the media only serves to exacerbate fears. Get your news from reliable sources like the CDC or the World Health Organization and not from gossip sites or social media. CLICK HERE for a recent article from the Child Mind Institute that provides additional information and practical tips for parents.

Always reassure yourself and your children that we cannot control what’s going on out in the world, but we can control our behaviors and emotions and we can focus on positive things and remain calm.

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