Now Open: Neuroaffirming Residential Treatment for Autistic Teens
New Neuroaffirming Program for Autistic Teens
Learn More ×If your teenager is living with a mental health or substance use disorder, you may not have thought of starting treatment over the Christmas holidays. At first blush, you might not think it’s a great idea. Away from family, away from the familiar, away from the rituals that make holidays important. Good points, all of them. We want you to think of Christmas break from a different point of view,
In just over a week from now, families all over the country will pack up their suitcases and visit relatives near and far. They’ll take a break from the hustle and bustle of the workaday world to spend time with the people closest to them during this season of gratitude, giving, and too much delicious food. But before they get to the good part – all that family and food
The stories about alcohol and drugs we read in the press are almost always negative. For years, news about alcohol and drugs either revolved around celebrities checking in and out of rehab or the next new drug parents needed to know their thrill-seeking teens might try. More recently, the press is all about the opioid crisis. And for good reason: the opioid crisis is real. People are dying from opioid
Every three years, high school students from over sixty countries take a series of standardized tests designed to assess their proficiency in core subject areas such as mathematics, reading, and science. The test is part of a larger effort, called the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which helps education policymakers compare their students and education systems with those in other countries around the world. In order to level the
Professionals working in clinical medicine and general healthcare have known about the long-term effects of early trauma on the development of chronic disease in adulthood for over twenty years. Until recently, however, most of these professionals worked in mental health, and understood early trauma in terms of its impact on psychological issues – mood and anxiety disorders in particular. These professionals established the trauma-informed approach to care that gains momentum
December is here, which means we’re already in the thick of the winter holidays here in the U.S. Halloween warmed us up. Thanksgiving made it real. Now the big break is just around the corner. Kids will be out of school for a couple of weeks, families will travel near and far for vacations or to visit one another for their traditional holiday rituals. No matter your faith, your belief
Adolescence brings a host of changes to the life of any family. Sometimes, those changes are difficult to handle. The teens themselves may not know what’s going on, even if the changes are painful and confusing. And if the changes are painful and confusing, they may try to ignore them, suppress them, or deal with them by acting out or attempting to self-medicate with drugs or alcohol. Internal changes in
The past twenty years have seen dramatic changes in the way we view addiction. We’ve gone from a paradigm that assumed people who develop alcohol and substance use disorders do so because of a character flaw, a moral failing, or a lack of willpower. We now view addiction as a disease of the brain. We’ve changed the way we talk about addiction, too: we avoid words like addict, abuser, drunk,
Awareness about mental health issues increases every day. That’s a positive development, when we consider that not long ago, the entire subject was close to taboo. Stigma around mental health disorders and treatment for mental health disorders kept people from seeking the support they needed. This environment had a disproportionate effect on adolescents, because many mental health disorders begin to surface during the teen years, and when disorders like depression
This spring, lawmakers in the state of Washington passed a bill changing the rights of parents and teenagers about two important – and sometimes controversial – aspects of treatment for mental health and substance use disorders: consent to treatment and access to treatment information. Until the passage of House Bill 1874, teenagers had robust rights with regards to treatment for alcohol/substance use and/or mental health disorders. Before the bill, parents
