Family Mental Health Services

Keeping Families Strong Program

The Keeping Families Strong Program plays the key role of intervening with families with risk factors who are identified by Appleseed’s partner agencies to be at risk for having their children removed from the home due to behavioral and/or mental health concerns or who are experiencing severe reactions to traumas and abuse. Families and children who experience trauma often display a high level of risk factors. These families often want concrete tools to move beyond their situation for the family to recover from severe reactions to traumas and abuse. This type of treatment collaborates with all of the people that may be involved in your child's life such as family and natural support systems including friends, neighbors, courts, probation officers, church, doctors, children's services, and other agencies that may be helping your family. 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.

Improving mental health services for families and their children is crucial to the overall health of our community. The I-FAST model is an evidence-based supported family treatment model and follows The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Practice Parameter for the Assessment of the Family. 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.

Services

Mental Health Services: Education and training individuals and families on anger management, interpersonal communication, goal-setting, positive and consistent parenting, stress management, conflict resolution, healthy problem-solving, positive social skills, and other areas related to family and interpersonal relationships. KFS staff also link families to appropriate necessary services as well as advocate for families to other entities such as courts, schools, medical, education, government agencies, and other social services.

Individual and Family Counseling Services: Relationship and marriage counseling, individual counseling, group counseling and support, offer 24-hour hotline crisis intervention support, and home-based family counseling. Counselors may meet with families in their homes so they may be treated in their natural environment. Families participating in case management receive additional supplemental therapeutic individual and/or family counseling services through this program.

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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

Recent Updates

Mental Health Spring Cleaning

Spring is here. As we watch the crocus poke through the ground and enjoy more and more daylight, it's a good time to recommit ourselves to our mental health care. Do some mental health spring cleaning. Identify a habit that prevents you from being your best. It could be the habit of criticizing others or negative self-talk. Whatever it is, commit yourself to being self-aware and to quickly replacing the behavior with a healthy alternative. Plan ahead and be ready. Speak a word of praise instead of criticism or replace negativity with encouragement. With a steady effort, you can change that habit that is holding you back.

Wellness and Recovery

One of the things that can raise our anxiety is how we choose to think about our problems. In our modern culture we see our stressors as bad and something to be avoided. Previous generations took the position that our adversities are things that teach us life lessons and make us stronger. So let me encourage us today to examine the circumstances we are in and begin to ask “what can I learn about myself from this?” How can I use these stressors to make me a better person? By doing this I can make what was causing me anxiety into something that gives me strength.

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month

April is sexual assault awareness month. The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network reports that every 73 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted. Sexual assault can range from harassment to direct physical sexual abuse. Everyone has a role to play in preventing sexual assault. There are many different ways that you can step in or make a difference if you see someone at risk. The key to keeping others safe is learning how to intervene in a way that fits the situation and your comfort level. Do what you can to interrupt the situation. A simple distraction can give the person at risk a chance to get to a safe place.

They are amazing. I couldn't do this without you. Thanks to all.