Woodbury lends voice in national discussion
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December 19, 2012 |
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Education
consultant Lon Woodbury |
With the tragic killings of 20 innocent children
last Friday in Newton, Connecticut, the subject
of mental illness is the hot topic affecting
many families, schools and professionals across
the United States.
Lon Woodbury, Bonners Ferry, an independent
educational consultant and President of
Struggling Teens.com, was among a panel of
guests Tuesday on Huffingtom Post Live, along
with Dr. Andy Sapp, President of Cherry Gulch, a
therapeutic boarding school for boys in Idaho,
Christina Shaver, the mother of a special needs
child from Illinois, Steven Dickstein, a
pediatric psycho-pharmacologist from New York,
and Brian Lombrowski, president of the Community
Alliance for the Ethical Treatment of Youth.
They discussed what we can do as a nation to
help families and children struggling with
mental illness.
Among the topics was the shortage of child
psychologists, the lack of community services
available for families with children with mental
illnesses, the need for more home-based
resources for these families and the shortage of
state funding for children in need.
Parents feel they don’t know who to trust or
where to go in all of this, which brought up the
subject of parent choice programs and schools
that specialize in working with these struggling
children and their families.
“Parents have choices and the power in these
situations and there are a lot of possibilities
to get assistance for their children," Woodbury
said. "In a good program it will be highly
structured and contain therapeutic sessions,
therapy groups, experiential groups,
individualized help and cutting edge resources
and best practices.”
For parents just starting the journey of finding
help for their children, Christina offered some
advice.
“Turn over every single rock that comes to you
and exhaust every resource that comes to you,”
she said."And rather than blaming, focus on what
is happening now and how to change it.”
You can listen to the full discussion by
clicking here.
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