IN THE

NEWS

Guiding people on the path to change.

TURBOTVILLE – You might say it’s a family affair at Bethesda PA Treatment & Healing.

That’s because in treating client. Bethesda considers not only the troubled youth but those closest to them.

Jerilyn A. Keen, a caseworker and president of the treatment center, said there are good, sound reasons for taking the family approach to treatment of youths.

“I think they are angry because of their circumstances and experiences they’ve been through,” she said.  “Many kids come from less than healthy backgrounds.”

A principal aspect of Bethesda ’s After School Evening Day Treatment program is helping the youths heal along with their family.

After all, youth are part of a family unit in need of therapy.

“When you gather other people around them, you can better solve problems,” said Keen, a trained psychologist.

She believes all individuals are influenced and affected by people in their orbit, especially family members.

“We are relational creatures,” Keen said.

For those causing problems at home, school or in society, Bethesda is an alternative to an institution far from family.

“We are doing everything we can to help them from being sent away,” she said.

Clients come to Bethesda through referrals made by children and youth agencies, juvenile probation and other agencies in 26 counties in central and eastern Pennsylvania .

The after-school program is offered to both male and females who report following regular school days and Saturdays to any one of a number of Bethesda ’s facilities offering the program.

The program consists of individual and group counseling sessions, recreational activities and work duties.

Each week a caseworker assigned to the youth accompanies him to his home for a family meeting.

Although the youth is at the facility from after school until early evening, the caseworker remains on-call 24 hours to provide curfew check, crisis intervention and other needed services.

Keen said the family therapy sessions help parents, siblings or other members of the family unit better understand the youth’s problems.

“I believe all families try their very best,” she said, “But they will parent the way they were parented.”

For example, an abusive family situation often will  e handed down through the generations and be perceived as normal.

It is Keen’s belief that many of the kids who end up at Bethesda are struggling with anger problems.

“There’s been some kind of major betrayal that has occurred,” she said.

As a result, many of them act out in socially unacceptable ways toward others, including violence.

Therefore, part of the focus of the day treatment program is to establish rules of conduct, accountability, even dress. 

Certain past behaviors, notably mistreatment of other people, simply are not tolerated, she said.

John Guigunito of Williamsport said the program helped his son Nate, learn to “live above his feelings.”

Nate, who died of cancer several years ago, had come to Bethesda as a young teen with anti-authority and disobedience problems, he said.

“It changed Nate’s life.  He started living it, applying it.  It worked,” Guigunito said.

he explained that the program helped the family see his son’s behavior from another perspective.  The program also taught his son that he was not a bad person.

“It got Nate in touch with spirituality,” he added.

The Alternative Education program targets youths who displayed problems in school ranging from chronic absenteeism and disruptive behavior to more serious acts including violence. 

Clients, referred to the program by teachers, counselors and other educators attend school daily at a Bethesda facility where they learn in a structured environment.

The program offers individualized instruction including remedial tutoring, specialized group sessions and counseling.

“We are trying to rehav them so they can follow rules in school,” Keen said.

Among the other programs offered by Bethesda are Specialized Foster care, Outpatient Drug and Alcohol Treatment, and Intensive Adolescent Day Treatment, a licensed partial hospitalization service for treating youths with such problems as oppositional defiant disorder and other adjustment problems.

Also included is the Be Challenged Outdoor Weekend Program, designed to challenge youths in a camping experience to test their decision-making,  team building and physical skills.

Many troubled kids who come to Bethesda lack healthy self-images, Keen said.

“We find kids have failed at everything they tried. (But) we believe every kid has a strength,” she said.

Serving some 600 kids between the ages of 10 and 18 Bethesda began in 1983 through a grant from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency.

First headquartered at Susquehanna University , it now is based just outside Turbotville and has expanded to include 10 program centers, including a group home for more seriously troubled boys in Middleburg.

The Montoursville site is set to relocate to the former Hope Enterprises building on Catherine Street in Williamsport .

Other program centers are in Milton , Bloomsburg, State College, Honesdale, Lehighton, East Stroudsburg, Scranton and South Montrose.