Mia was 18 months old when her family began treatment at A Child’s Haven (ACH). During the intake, Mia’s mother shared that Mia would throw tantrums and become anxious anytime she left the room or with the slightest change to their routine. Mia’s family primarily spoke Spanish at home, so her vocabulary was slightly delayed, which made it hard for Mia to express her needs at her previous child care center and created more communication challenges. ACH’s Child and Family Therapist told Mia’s mom that we have bilingual staff that are specially trained to help Mia work through her anxiety and overcome language barriers. Mia’s mother was relieved and excited to learn anything she could to help her daughter and her family.
During Mia’s treatment at ACH, she went from having three to four outbursts a day, to around three outbursts per week. Mia was able to accomplish this because our Clinical Treatment Providers are consistent in their therapy methods and they taught Mia self-regulation strategies. These tips helped Mia learn work out her emotions on her own instead of depending on physical comfort every time she got upset.
Techniques that were used in therapy were shared with Mia’s mother during family therapy sessions facilitated by our Child and Family Therapist. Mia’s family also participated in our monthly Group Connections night where they learned extra parenting tools and met other caregivers who were navigating some of the same situations with their children.
After ten months, Mia’s family met their treatment goals and Mia transitioned back to her local day care and is doing well. Mia’s mother still talks about how important it was for her to know other families were going through some of the same struggles that she was and told us she still uses strategies she learned at A Child’s Haven every day.
Help more families like Mia’s by donating today.
For the privacy of our families, some names and details have been changed.
The post Mia’s Story appeared first on A Child's Haven.