V I S I O N The Year in Hindsight
Center for Child Counseling: Building Trauma-Informed Communities OUR GOAL: Create trauma-aware adults within our homes, schools, and community service centers who recognize and stop childhood trauma and abuse in its tracks, are part of the healing process, and ensure children grow healthy in mind and body.
Meet Elio
He is born in a trauma-informed community, surrounded by adults trained to understand and respond to children and families when they experience crisis.
Community Health
Community Hall
Mom suffers post-partum depression but is connected to the support she needs to make Elio feel safe and secure as his growing brain develops.
Elio grows strong under the care of trauma-informed adults in his life. As a young attorney, he fights beside other leaders to create policies that protect children, giving back to the community that raised him.
Neighborhood
Home
Elio acts out at others getting off the school bus. His neighborhood police officer knows Elio is grieving the loss of his sister. The officer is a safe and caring figure in his life who helps buffer Elio’s feelings of stress.
Elio’s sister falls ill, and his parents are forced to work extra jobs to care for her. Elio learns to manage his emotions with online therapy, while Mom and Dad receive parenting support.
School
Elio’s teachers understand he is in trauma after his sister dies. They provide him care and time to deal with fear and anger, reinforcing the resiliency skills he is learning through therapy.
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2020 Vision
The Year in Hindsight
2020 wrote a new story for everyone. This is ours — this is yours. As we present our 2020 impact report, we are still deeply mired in the cruel fallout of the global pandemic, which starkly outlined further social and health disparities here at home and across the globe. Currently, our fragile connection to humanity is frayed with fear, loss, mistrust, and loneliness. Our new common thread is, “how did 2020 change your life?” Because no one escaped this strange captivity. We all experienced change, some for worse, but remarkably, some for better. We responded, we grew, and kept moving forward. And now we see some light ahead for all of us. For Center for Child Counseling, in looking back with the benefit of hindsight, the fire of 2020 burned away the fog and brought us a pure and brilliant vision. Our focus has never been sharper or more defined; our purpose never more clear. It is YOU, our community of supporters, who moved us to rapid first response, arming us with the ability to care for the most vulnerable victims of a harrowing year: our children. It took guts, grit, and every bit of money and resources you gave us. We want to express our gratitude for your unwavering trust and support. As we lay out the story of 2020 over the next few pages, look for yourself. Where did you help? Where do you fit in? We’re still fighting on the front lines and we still need your help. Always will. We’re not waiting until the last page of this report — full of positive impact — to ask for your continued support. That ask is going right here, up front. Because it’s the most important thing we can do: keep you in the fight. Children’s lives are depending on us, together. After you enjoy 2020 Vision: The Year in Hindsight, please visit our website and give generously to the vision of trauma-informed communities, where we prevent our children from ever having to endure the unimaginable violence and pain that Center for Child Counseling now works so resolutely to heal. With grateful hearts, Renée Layman (President and CEO), Board, and Staff
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2020 Vision
The Year in Hindsight
A CHRONOLOGY OF COMMUNITY RESPONSE
1st Quarter Fear Won’t Define Us 2020 began with big, bright goals: reaching and healing more children, creating more trauma-informed and trained adults, pushing forward with innovative ideas that really mean movement on our mission. The reality of a global pandemic and its lightning-fast spread to our community threatened these goals with the same formidable fear that closed around our families. As lockdown orders fell, combatting fear, isolation, and anxiety became our work focus. For children and families already in the grips of toxic stress and instability, the compounded impacts of COVID-19 on households — like job, housing, and food insecurity — caused family violence and abuse to skyrocket. The implications for long-term effects were unfathomable.
Telehealth
Thanks to a visionary plan funded by Quantum Foundation to reach more families through virtual therapy, we were far ahead of the curve in providing telehealth. As lockdowns were issued, we unlocked the future of family services, interfacing with 896 children over the internet.
Our greatest challenge? Helping children as our therapy rooms stood closed down and empty, preventing direct support, treatment, and healing.
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2020 Vision
The Year in Hindsight
2020 Vision in Action Information was immediately dispatched to the community to address the particular trauma caused to children by the
Emergency Relief Fund
pandemic. We connected families to support and resources
A very generous donor response to our urgent call for crisis funding raised $151,225, allowing teams to respond to the immediate escalation in cases of extreme violence, fear, and suicidal behaviors.
around the county, and enrolled existing and new children and families in our telehealth program.
In the move to virtual therapy, we lowered waitlists drastically. “Action is the antidote to anxiety.” This became Center for Child Counseling’s official mantra of 2020. Before the COVID-19 crisis hit, we were busy educating the public about our work as front-line, first responders to childhood trauma, then suddenly all first responders were dealing with the complete unknown at an indescribable speed and severity than before. “We are the helpers” was also a guiding statement for finding the strength to carry on – we had no other choice but to be better, stronger for those who needed us.” Renée Layman, President and CEO
Grant Partners
Support for crisisrelief was a welcome reinforcement. We are forever grateful to our partners in this work: Children’s Services Council of Palm Beach County, Town of Palm Beach United Way, Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties, and United Way of Palm Beach County.
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2020 Vision
The Year in Hindsight
A CHRONOLOGY OF COMMUNITY RESPONSE
2nd Quarter Ready to Fight As first responders to childhood trauma, this responsibility and the term itself took on new meaning during the growing local and global health crisis. Trained for action and ready to fight, Center for Child Counseling moved forward under the constant encouragement received from our community of supporters and partners engaged in the battle. Despite bravery, we were haunted by the enormity of what lay ahead. How would we protect our most vulnerable children from an unknown, invisible enemy that attacks on all sides, destroying families body, mind, and soul? There’s confidence in knowing your work genuinely matters. One thing became really clear as we planned a new course: we’d been preparing for this moment for a long time. Initiatives invested in and led, like trauma-informed communities, the Way of Being with Children framework, and Fighting ACEs from a public health perspective, were proving to be exactly the ammunition needed to defeat this new adversary. Center for Child Counseling trained 3,498 adult caregivers and professionals in 2020, another milestone year in building trauma-informed communities.
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2020 Vision
A Way of Being with Children: A TraumaInformed Approach to Building Resilience
A go-to guidebook for understanding and supporting children’s development and behavior, this breakthrough manual for parents and caregivers was developed by Center for Child Counseling and delivered to communities across the nation just in time to address the multiple social effects of the coronavirus on children and families. This core resource embodies the entire philosophy on which we base our work, and drives the delivery of our model to help communities everywhere.
The Year in Hindsight
Free Family Workshops
Parents who found themselves in the new role of stay-at-home worker and teacher could access free support through workshops like How to Help My Child Listen, Structuring Your Child’s Day for Success, and Supporting Children During COVID-19.
The Programs We Operate Center for Child Counseling is changing child health outcomes through three proprietary strategies that address trauma and ACEs: Education and Prevention Services: Building the capacity of adult caregivers and communities to address the impact of trauma and adversity on children and adolescents. Fighting ACEs Initiative: Advocacy, outreach, and awareness using a public health approach to mitigate the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences and trauma, which can impact physical and emotional health throughout the lifespan. The Institute for Clinical Training: Nationwide clinical workshops, professional development and continued education, student internships, and communitywide workshops for teachers, parents, and caregivers. Our clinical programs deliver treatment to those in current need of professional support:
Child and Family Center: 306 families served in 2020 Child First Program: 113 children served in 2020 Infant Mental Health Program: 169 moms and babies served in 2020 Childhood Trauma Response Program: 183 children served in 2020
Fighting ACEs
Pandemic conditions intensified potential damage to children’s health and development. Escalated fear, isolation, and household violence became our primary targets in the continued war on Adverse Childhood Experiences.
Childcare and Community Social-Emotional Wellness (CCSEW) Program: 3,800 children served in 2020 School-Based Mental Health Program: 482 students served in 2020
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2020 Vision
The Year in Hindsight
A CHRONOLOGY OF COMMUNITY RESPONSE
3rd Quarter Holding the Line Just as we braced our grip on the front line, a national tragedy broke our hold. If the inequities created by the pandemic weren’t enough to choke us on the raw sorrow of racism, the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hand of our sworn protectors further poisoned our air. We lived the following summer in political and social discord. While the world watched, activists strapped on masks, took to the streets, and united in protest, brotherhood, and hope, but the damage could not be undone. “I can’t breathe.” The last words of a man dying under the knee of brutality became the common phrase for all the ways we found it impossible to catch our breath as a people, community, or family. The worry of children, especially Black and Brown children, about their safety in the world became our immediate focus. We helped parents learn how to address the sad and frightening state of racism affecting their children daily. We gathered in support of our staff members of color experiencing personal crisis while heroically healing others.
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2020 Vision
Therapy Kits
Play Therapy is the foundation of our work with children, helping them process trauma, grief, and other issues. When families could no longer come to us, we went to them. A campaign to provide toys, books, and activities needed for virtual treatment at home was met with overwhelming support from you.
The Year in Hindsight
A Statement Against Racism
We will not be silent about the impact of racism on children’s mental health and wellbeing. Our June 9 statement acknowledged the obliterating pain endured by Black families for generations and quoted this statement from the New York Times: “We must begin to transform the concept of resilience from an individual trait to one that describes a community — and society — that cares for everyone . . . This is where prevention and healing begin.”
What is an Adverse Community Environment?
Unstable communities contribute to the hardship and trauma of children and families, resulting from concentrated poverty and violence and low access to food, education, health care, and employment. Systemic racism adds to the complexity. Greater awareness from us all helps drive solutions and reform.
Diversity-Informed Tenets for Work with Infants, Children, and Families
Center for Child Counseling assured the community of our commitment to the principles of a diversity-informed practice, including self-awareness, acknowledging privilege, combatting discrimination, respecting others’ knowledge, understanding the power of language, allocating resources to systems change, and advancing policy that supports all families.
We Asked, You Answered
Thanks to your enthusiastic response to our supply drive, office closets were crammed with items that provided 450 therapy kits to kids and teens, setting them up for successful therapy at home and opening the greatest level of access to mental wellness we’ve ever offered. And we’re still going.
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2020 Vision
The Year in Hindsight
A CHRONOLOGY OF COMMUNITY RESPONSE
4th Quarter Stronger than Before Like the community we serve, Center for Child Counseling reflected on the year 2020 with co-mingled grief and gratitude. It was, and still is, an extraordinary time. The year’s challenges exposed humanity’s worst, but also our very best. In each fresh moment of despair seemed to be a reason to hope. And hope, coupled with the ability to face adversity, is resilience. With a critical focus on the health of the world, it’s no small reminder that children’s exposure to ACEs is the greatest unaddressed public health threat facing our nation today. 2020 was the most opportune time to present the executive summary of our 2018-19 study, A Public Health Approach to Fighting ACES in Palm Beach County, funded by Quantum Foundation. Its key messages for systems transformation — resource connection, partnerships, and policy change — are laid out for practical implementation across the local health, government, nonprofit, and education sectors. In hindsight, 2020 sharpened our focus with laser-like accuracy. Our vision remains strong and clear: Lead the Fight.
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2020 Vision
Schools “Reopen”
Some children resumed classroom attendance in October; others remained at home. Center for Child Counseling supported returning students, teachers, and parents concerned with safety during the pandemic while addressing the mental health needs of remote-working parents and online students.
The Year in Hindsight
Visionary Impact In the News
WPBF Channel 25 dedicated a special hour report to the state of mental health in South Florida amid the pandemic. Center for Child Counseling was showcased as an innovative expert and solutions-provider for children during COVID-19 through delivery of online telehealth services and Home Therapy Play and Tool Kits.
Center for Child Counseling is honored to attribute these 2020 points of pride to your support: • Received Nonprofits First Reaccreditation Standard of Excellence for operations and governance •V oted People’s Choice organization at Hats Off Nonprofit Awards • Awarded contract provision for the Stop Now And Plan (SNAP®) Program, funded by the Florida Network of Youth and Family Services • Doubled our capacity with an additional Child First Team, funded by the Children’s Services Council of Palm Beach County • An anonymous gift established our Endowment Fund • With the launch of our free library, more than 3,000 parents and caregivers around the world enrolled in workshops to cope with the stress of the pandemic and share positive parenting tips
Statement of Financial Activities For end of year September 30, 2020 Money Coming In
Healing the Healers
We were honored to receive funding from Healthier Jupiter and BeWellPBC to support our “Healing the Healers” online series to support our frontline mental health therapists, particularly those who have experienced their own trauma. Their work requires intensive expertise and compassion, and all mental health professionals need support so that they can, in turn, effectively support children and families.
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2020 Vision
Contracts, Grants and Government: $3,313,170
Program Fees: $918,216
Contributions Events and and In-Kind: Other Income: $633,285 $42,811
Impact Going Out
Program Services $3,949,418
Operating $502,440
Change in net assets: $962,693 Beginning net assets: $1,751,401 Ending net assets: $2,714,094
The Year in Hindsight
Fundraising $134,168
True Vision Meet Bailey Hughes, Family Ambassador and Board of Directors member for Center for Child Counseling. A former special educator for the School District of Palm Beach County, Bailey is now an advocate for children with trauma after fostering more than 20 children and adopting 3 of them. As a teacher in a self-contained Emotional Behavioral Disabilities unit working with exceptionally vulnerable children, Bailey experienced first-hand the desperate need for children’s mental health awareness and programming. She helped these children by educating herself and listening to parents who found themselves in the depths of their child’s mental health struggles. Read more about Bailey and her role as an advocate with Center for Child Counseling, along with more in-depth information about the entire report, at our exclusive online Impact Report page: www.centerforchildcounseling.org/2020Vision
8895 N. Military Trail, Suite 300C, Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33410 (561) 244-9499 centerforchildcounseling.org
