Somerset Home for Temporarily Displaced Children
Jeffrey Fetzko, ACSW, LSW, CFRE
Vol. 5, No. 2, January 25, 2007
The Executive Director's News is published every two weeks, specifically for the employees of the Somerset Home. This issue and past issues are available on our web site at http://www.somersethome.org/main/pages/employee_newsletter.htm.
Spotlight on Somerset Home Therapists
During the last Somerset Home strategic planning process, it was determined clinical services should be expanded; goals were set and benchmarks developed. Since that time, clinical services have increased from 31 to 40 hours per week. Our strategic planning goal is to increase these services to 56 hours per week.
Our Somerset Home therapists; Loretta Caldwell, April McGrath and Nicole Roberson play an important role, providing psychotherapeutic services to youth who live at Brahma House and our TLP programs.
The following examples of their work highlight a sample of our current activities. We look forward to expanding these services and are committed to funding the expansion of this valuable program.
LORETTA CALDWELL, LCSW
One youth, who worked with Loretta Caldwell came to Brahma House after family therapy in the community was clearly not working when the youth locked his mother out of the home. She was a frustrated, single mother who also worked full-time to support the two of them. Additionally, this family was dealing with cross cultural differences with the mother being from Korea. The trouble began as her son became accustomed to American culture. When he became a teenager, he began to exert his independence, which she viewed as acting out and disrespectful toward her.
Loretta began individual therapy to address some of the frustration and anger the son felt towards his mother for not understanding his life of living with the conflict of two cultures, and the need to fit in with his peers.
Loretta was able to get the two to communicate with each other like never before during their family therapy sessions. They began to communicate their expectations of one another and the needs each had. The mother was able to finally understand her son’s need for positive attention from her and the conflict he was living with. And the son was able to understand that his mother needed him to get a job and help out financially allowing his mother to have more time for him. The two were happily reunited few months before the son’s 18th birthday.
APRIL McGRATH, LCSW
Al was placed at the Brahma House after being removed from his Grandmother’s home in Newark where he was raised since the age of three along with his siblings. He was placed with her because both his biological parents had a history of alcohol and drug abuse. Eventually his grandmother became abusive toward him as well. She too was an alcoholic. He said he had been living with abuse his entire life and finally decided he didn’t want to suffer any longer. He was attending The Arts High, a performing arts high school where he played the Saxophone.
While at Brahma House, April persuaded a local music center to donate a tenor saxophone and music for Al to practice. Al attended individual and group counseling sessions to address the history of physical abuse and familial substance abuse. He was able to identify new ways of dealing with conflicts and increase his ability to recognize how to use appropriate coping skills when faced with a conflict.
When it was determined he didn’t have any other family members to live with, April recommended Al be placed in a long-term therapeutic placement close to his Grandmother's home so that he could return to his school. He told April playing the saxophone has a major impact in his life and he relies on music as a way to cope with the negative things that have happened to him.
NICOLE ROBERSON, LCSW
Diana came to Passages in need of a stable, safe environment as a result of family discord and parental substance abuse. When Diana could not meet regularly with her therapist at a local mental health center due to scheduling conflicts, she was referred by her Passages Case Manager, Nicole Franco to Nicole Roberson.
Diana was experiencing problems making healthy decisions, and having a hard time communicating difficult emotions appropriately. Soon a strong therapeutic rapport began to take shape between them. Since it was also critical for Diana to communicate her feelings more effectively, Nicole used role-playing to get Diana to realize how her emotions impacted her decisions negatively. Soon Diana’s use of positive decision-making and communication skills improved.
Today, she is working toward successfully leaving the program as a fully independent young adult, ready to embark on the next phase of her life. Though Diana continues to work on making appropriate decision making and using positive communication skills, she already feels better equipped to handle what life may ‘dish out’ as she transitions to adulthood.
Closing thoughts...
This is the kind of work being done by therapists at Somerset Home. Where other therapy fails, Somerset Home’s succeeds. Somerset Home therapists have the flexibility to meet with kids and family at times convenient for them, more often than just once a week and, even more importantly, immediately, when the client’s motivation is at its highest.
As always, thank you all for your continued hard work on behalf of our youth.
