After School Day Treatment Overview
Koinonia’s After School Day Treatment Program is a therapeutic program serving children ages 12 to 18 who have experienced severe trauma. Its purpose is to help integrate its youth back into the community as independent and successful members of society.
The program’s clients are offered specialized therapeutic services, including group, individual, and family therapy to help with behaviors and difficulties consistent with trauma, ADHD, attachment, mood, and behavioral disorders, as well as behaviors and traits associated with personality disorders. The program emphasizes emotional, cognitive, and behavioral management, teaching skills such as recognizing trauma triggers, understanding emotional distress, identifying thinking errors and replacing them with truth statements, practicing mindfulness, and replacing negative behaviors with positive behaviors.
The social setting of After School Day Treatment provides empathy training as an integral part of the After School Day Treatment Program; this allows clients to view modeling of empathy as well as develop and practice empathy, as they are given clear and frequent feedback on a daily basis. The program provides the best therapeutic environment to ensure change and therapeutic progress within each of its clients.
The After School Day Treatment Program operates on a point and level system, which gives the youth a clear definition of desired and undesired behaviors. Part of what makes the After School Day Treatment Program successful is that parents participate in the child’s progress as well; not only do the youth receive feedback in the program, but their parents use the point system at home, providing consistency and reinforcement for each client.
In addition to therapeutic services, behavioral training and reinforcement, clients are also taught life skills such as age-appropriate grooming, self-responsibility, job skills, and educational skills. Clients are also provided recreational therapy opportunities which enhance perseverance, cooperation, team work, and resilience. All of these things combine to create a therapeutic environment which allows the youth to grow into thriving young adults.
