SP ONSOR SP OTLIGHT
Healing Haven—Behavioral Health and Autism Therapy Services BY JOCELYN COOK
Healing Haven was founded in 2010 and provides ABA Therapy, Speech Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Counseling and Developmental Testing and Assessments. Healing Haven’s foundation includes an emphasis on parent involvement and stress management for children and parents. The stress that parents of children with special needs face can feel insurmountable. At Healing Haven, the team works to support parents and children beyond simply delivering one-on-one therapy. Healing Haven provides a unique blend of services not always offered together in a single clinic. Their focus is on the child first, rather than their diagnosis, by providing compassionate care where children can feel they are part of their own care team, and their voices matter. The unique campus model Healing Haven created in Madison Heights includes three intentionally designed clinics to support children and teens at various stages from 2 to 16 years old. Each clinic allows for a variety of learning opportunities based on age and client skill level, including school preparation, social skills, prevocational skills, and more. And while the
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December 2023
majority of their clients have an autism diagnosis, they do also serve family members and siblings with counseling and stress management services. Healing Haven’s President and Founder Jamie McGillivary, MS, LLP, BCBA, LBA, has worked with children with autism for over 25 years. During the early years of her career, she saw how families struggled to get the support that they needed. Healing Haven was born from a need to address many of the unmet needs families and children with autism face on a daily basis. Jamie received her graduate degree at Eastern Michigan University. After graduation, she went to work for a local hospital. The landscape of ABA was much different at the time, as there was no insurance coverage for families, and the costs of services back then were outside of the reach for most families. As such, there were very few providers in the area. Jamie worked in tandem with the hospital to create a unique program that taught parents how to teach their children. Jamie and her team’s research during that time taught them firsthand how parents could be very effective agents of change. “It also shaped my
Early Intervention
passion for understanding the stress that parents experience. I realized the importance of addressing the needs of the whole family,” explains McGillivary. As time went on, insurance coverage became a reality for many families which made treatment much more accessible. While this change led to many more families receiving services, the knowledge Jamie gained from that stressful time - seeing families scrambling for services left an indelible mark on her mind and heart. It was the inspiration for creating a program that continued to emphasize parent involvement and stress management. There are many key differentiators that set Healing Haven apart from other ABA clinics. As mentioned previously, parent training is at the heart of their ABA program. “No one is more invested in a child’s outcome than a parent. We know that parent involvement is pivotal to a child’s development,” says McGillivary. Additionally, Jamie and her team are passionate about early intervention for parental coping skills, as they believe that parents need to learn more than just techniques to reach their children. They need to learn how to take care of themselves in an effort to best care for their children.
