Counseling
Our Services
Healing and Strength
12 Thursday evenings, starting October and February
Learn methods to help your family recover from trauma, including relaxation techniques, communication tools, and more.
Art Group (4-7)
Learn what feelings are, how to name them and what they look like
Learn how to practice ways to get out energy, talk about feelings, and feel safe in a group with art activities
Child (8-12) and Teen (13-17) groups
Learn about their feelings and experiences
Develop skills to cope with difficult emotions and feel more in control of their reactions and behaviors
Identify ways to continue to heal and remember their loved ones.
Adult Group
Learn skills to ground yourself and your children
Learn how to manage trauma reactions and reminders through supportive connection
Restoring Hope
Tuesday evenings
Have you been injured by, or experienced violence? Our support groups may be for you. Using the Sanctuary model, survivors help each other— with the support of licensed clinicians— to cope with the changed reality of their lives.
Groups are ongoing.
Mental Health First Aid
The Chester Community Coalition is now able to provide Mental Health First Aid training!
Mental Health First Aid is an 8-hour course that teaches how to help someone who may be experiencing a mental health or substance use challenge. The training helps to identify, understand and respond to signs of addictions and mental illnesses.
Just as CPR helps you assist an individual having a heart attack, Mental Health First Aid helps you assist someone experiencing a mental health or substance use-related crisis. In the Mental Health First Aid course, you learn risk factors and warning signs for mental health and addiction concerns, strategies for how to help someone in both crisis and non-crisis situations, and where to turn for help.
Mental Health First Aid teaches about recovery and resiliency – the belief that individuals experiencing these challenges can and do get better, and use their strengths to stay well.
About TF-CBT and Trauma
Our services are based on the Sanctuary model and the Trauma-focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) model. As a result, we are focused on supporting adults and youth as they build the knowledge and skills to manage the symptoms of their traumatic experience.
Our clients come to understand the direct relationship between their feelings, their physical and mental health, and their actions. They are also empowered with skills to take care of themselves and improve their quality of life, by understanding trauma reminders, relaxation and grounding techniques and establishing more supportive interactions with others. Through committed participation individuals strengthen skills they already have and discover new ways to increase their personal and family well-being.
Dr. Nadine Burke-Harris on the effects of childhood trauma
Pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris noticed a disturbing trend as she treated children in an underserved neighborhood in San Francisco: that many of the kids who came to see her had experienced childhood trauma. She began studying how childhood exposure to adverse events affects brain development, as well as a person’s health as an adult.
Understanding this powerful correlation, Burke Harris became the founder and CEO of the Center for Youth Wellness, an initiative at the California Pacific Medical Center Bayview Child Health Center that seeks to create a clinical model that recognizes and effectively treats toxic stress in children. Her work pushes the health establishment to reexamine its relationship to social risk factors, and advocates for medical interventions to counteract the damaging impact of stress. Her goal: to change the standard of pediatric practice, across demographics.