Therapeutic Crisis Intervention training for families at Walker

Josh Lechter, assistant director of child care for the Community-Based Acute Treatment program at Walker, has written a paper featured in the most recent issue of Refocus, the Residential Child Care Project newsletter published by Cornell University.

His paper, Using TCI’s Family Care Provider Training To Break Down Language Barriers Between Residential Treatment and Life at Home, discusses the success of a new initiative at Walker to share therapeutic crisis intervention training and techniques with the families of Walker students.

Therapeutic Crisis Intervention For Family Care Providers (TCIF) is a curriculum-based class adapted from the same crisis prevention and behavior management skills taught to The Walker School staff. Developed by the The Family Life Development Center at Cornell University, the 5-day course involves modeling and role playing to familiarize family members with strategies and techniques for deescalating problems and emotionally volatile situations with their children at home. According to the developers at Cornell, Walker is the first organization to offer TCIF training to the families of children with serious emotional and behavior issues.

Judging from the enthusiastic response of participating families, the availability of this specialized training for parents and caregivers will help to improve the likelihood of a child’s successful transition from residential treatment to home and community. In the paper, Lechter recounts the comments of several grateful parents, including one who said, “the course was a blessing.  I now do not feel alone in helping my children with their mental health needs.”

You can read the paper in volume 14 of Refocus.

Walker Partnerships professional expertise featured at Boston-area education conferences

This coming weekend, Dr. James Earley, managing director of Walker Partnerships, will help to extend the influence of Walker to our professional partners as he shares his special education program development expertise at two area conferences.

On Friday, Dr. Earley will be at the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Programs in Professional Education 24th Annual Learning Differences Conference, where he will participate on a panel discussing challenges faced by special education programs. Along with Dr. Stephen Gould, Patricia Sclafani-Hinkley, and Kathleen Fucci, Dr. Earley will contribute to the panel discussion “Overcoming the Separation Between General and Special Education.” With the help of expertise like that developed by Walker Partnerships, the conference will seek to address the problem of providing differentiated instruction to effectively teach all students in our public schools.

On Saturday, Dr. Earley will present the keynote address at the Perkins School For the Blind’s second annual conference Envision the Future…Transition from School to Adult Life. His address, “Building Partnerships towards a Successful Transition” will draw from his extensive work with Walker Partnerships to develop programs with strong transitional support for students with special needs and unique challenges. This expertise is highly relevant to Perkins students and families facing difficult transitions from intensive and highly structured programs to more independent programs that integrate community-based services.

Animal-assisted therapy finds a home at Walker

The newest employee at Walker is only four years old, but she is already making important contributions in the lives of some troubled children. Meet Nya. She’s part Labrador retriever, part poodle, and part expressive therapist.

Nya’s owner, Beth Silvestri-O’Neil, has long been one of Walker’s pioneers. She brought expressive therapy to Walker more than three decades ago, when it was still a brand new field and mostly unknown outside academia. Her commitment to helping troubled children find new ways to express themselves and understand their emotional challenges has led to the newest therapeutic program at Walker: animal-assisted therapy.

Offered as part of the expressive arts therapy program, animal-assisted therapy (AAT) allows children to interact with a specially trained pet and share their thoughts and feelings in a safe, nurturing, and fun environment while they develop responsibility and empathy.

Children chosen for the AAT program are typically struggling with the lasting effects of trauma, often the result of abuse or neglect. AAT promotes improved self-regulation and stress management strategies and seeks to decrease aggressive and acting-out behaviors. “Spending time with Nya has given some kids new access to their feelings in ways that are very different from more traditional therapies,” says Beth.

Working with animals for therapeutic benefit is not entirely new at Walker; for the past decade, some Walker students have participated in “Bootstraps”, an off-campus horseback riding program with similar goals. But Nya, who has been certified by the Delta Society for therapeutic work, is the first four-legged member of the Walker Needham campus community since its days as a dairy farm in the early part of the last century.

So far, the initial response has been very encouraging. The AAT program serves five students, but Beth would like to expand the program to serve more children–an idea that is just fine with Nya. “The kids love her,” adds Beth. “And the feeling is mutual.”

(republished from the October 2008 printed issue of Walker Talk)