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Child, adolescent counseling among Catholic Charities work

By RENEE WEBB, Globe editor
(Email Renee)

Helping people learn skills to cope with the pressures of life is one of the basic goals of the counseling services of Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Sioux City.

Susan Rohden, clincical supervisor at the Catholic Charities branch office in Fort Dodge that is known as Catholic Social Services, said the length of therapy is tailored to individual needs. Short-term issues may be dealt with in three to five sessions while in-depth issues may take several months.

“The majority of our clients come in for short-term work addressing specific issues,” said Rohden, LISW (licensed independent social worker). “We talk through whatever the stressor is and decide how they need to intervene in the stressor and then move forward.”

Catholic Charities serves about 6,000 clients throughout the Diocese of Sioux City each year. Counseling services are available in each of the locations: Algona, Carroll, Fort Dodge, Sioux City and Storm Lake.
While the Fort Dodge office offers a mix of counseling services for individuals, couples and families, it is well known for work with children and adolescents, which sometimes flows into family counseling.

Emily McCullough, LMFT (licensed marriage and family therapist) and CADC (certified alcohol and drug counselor) in the Fort Dodge office, pointed out that quite often parents will seek individual services for a child to deal with a specific issue such as a behavioral problem.

“As therapists, we try to look at the whole picture,” she said. That means they may meet with a parent or parents on a monthly basis as well to “address issues that may be helpful from the parent end – parenting guidance to help them reach their goal of their child’s improved behavior.”

McCoullough noted that parent behavior impacts child behavior.

Family work, Rohden said, typically comes out of the work with individuals. These issues could center on the lack of communication or boundaries or the need to develop “more reasonable expectations of one another.”

The Fort Dodge office often gets referrals for play therapy with children.

“That is something we certainly have developed a significant comfort level with,” said Rohden, who noted that they will serve children as young as three years old. “What we do with the little ones is non-directive play therapy where we utilize some specific toys to help children play out and play through whatever emotional difficulty they are presented with.”

Catholic Charities also counsels adolescents who have a variety of issues.

“We deal with multiple issues. It may be as basic as school difficulties or parent-child interactional issues,” she said. “It may be difficulty eating or sleeping or the parent is noticing a significant change for some reason and they are concerned about the child’s mental health because nothing else seems to be part of the issue.”

They also counsel children/adolescents who are dealing with grief issues, anxiety, depression and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). For instance, when working with adolescents who have ADHD, the therapists will teach them about the disorder and help them develop skills to cope with the disorder – the importance to stop and think, slow down, deal with distractibility and how to deal with peer relationships. The therapists also work with parents so they can learn how to help their children succeed.

“We also get a lot of referrals from the Department of Human Services and other agencies to help children who have suffered from abuse whether that be physical, emotional or sexual abuse,” Rohden said. “They may be in their family home or may have been removed from their family home. We may be helping that child process through the abuse they have experienced.”

In addition, she noted, the Fort Dodge agency also has an adolescent group for boys who have sexually acted out.

“We started that group in the last couple of years and have been very pleased with the outcomes we have seen and the growth we have seen in the boys,” Rohden said. “Those boys travel from an hour away in order to receive services. We have been so impressed with the end results and we feel that is a program that is beneficial to our community, to society as a whole and in general to those boys.”

Just as with children, the reasons adults seek counseling services are also diverse. It could be marital problems, family communication issues, job loss/pressures or help to cope with addictions.

“Any one person or family only has so many resources at their own disposal – within themselves or family and friends,” McCoullough said. “They can talk to others but to seek out someone who helps people cope with those issues everyday would be a valuable resource for them – something they could really benefit from taking advantage of.”

In addition to counseling services, Catholic Charities offers other services such as adoptions, maternity counseling and counseling for post-abortion counseling through Project Rachel.