Office(419) 281-3716  Hours: M, W, F 7a-5p; T & Th: 7a-8p (limited services)-Please call ahead
24 Hour Crisis: (419) 289-6111   Crisis Text Line: Text 4HOPE to 741741
Rape Crisis/Domestic Violence: (419) 289-8085

Family Mental Health Services

Keeping Families Strong Program

The Keeping Families Strong Program plays the key role of intervening with families with risk factors for having their children removed from the home due to histories of trauma, behavioral, and/or mental health concerns. This program uses the Integrative Family and Systems Treatment (I-FAST) and the Family Systems Trauma (FST) models to effectively treat trauma while involving the entire family and their natural support systems.

The I-FAST model is an evidence-based supported family treatment model and follows Treatment focuses on specific symptoms and problems that parents identify as their main concerns. This model utilizes both the agency and clients' strengths and resources and is effective in bringing positive outcomes in families that have children and adolescents with severe emotional and behavioral problems. -I-FAST

The FST technique is a component of the evidence-based model, Parenting Love & Limits® (PLL) System of Care.  According to the PLL logic model, the goal of the FST technique is to use structural and strategic family therapy directives to address the family or individual’s unhealed wounds in the here-and-now from a family systems perspective. Through these techniques, benefits include a reduction in risk factors and increase in protective factors.-FST

The Keeping Families Strong program is funded in part by Ashland County United Way.

Risk Factors

  • Families with a history of mental illness
  • Children from low-income households
  • Low education
  • Highly stressed or isolated families
  • Single parent families
  • Families where there is considerable occupational and/or marital discord
  • Maternal depression
  • Substance use disorder
  • Ineffective communication
  • Aggressive or hostile behavior
  • Children whose parents discipline approaches are inconsistent/unpredictable, physically abusive, or critical
  • Families with one or more children who are at-risk of out-of-home placement

Benefits

  • Youth are less likely to be removed from the home
  • The family has an increased positive behavior and mental health
  • Increased parent involvement
  • Decreased trauma levels
  • Increased family functioning
  • Decrease in criminal recidivism or return to foster care
  • Fewer days of residential or foster car
  • Fewer psychiatric and behavioral diagnoses

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