The brain’s ability to integrate certain information received from the body’s five basic sensory systems.

Children who have difficulty self-regulating may have stress response systems that are poorly organized and hyper-reactive. They are likely to be impulsive, have difficulties transitioning from one activity to another, and may overreact to even minor stressors or challenges. Children in this category require structure and predictability provided consistently by safe, nurturing adults across settings.

Children who have a history of disrupted early care giving, whose earliest experiences were characterized as chaotic, neglectful, and/or unpredictable often have difficulties forming and maintaining relationships. In order to make sufficient gains in relational functioning, essential activities must include interactions with multiple positive healthy adults who are invested in the child’s life and in their treatment. It is critical, whenever possible, to engage the child’s family and other important people in the child’s life.

As in other areas of focus, essential cognitive activities must take place in the context of safe, nurturing relationships with invested adults. It is in the context of safe, relationally enriched environments that essential healing and growth can occur. Examples of essential cognitive activities include: speech and language therapy, insight oriented psychodynamic treatment, cognitive behavioral therapy, and family therapy.

We believe that a person’s mental health and physical health are intrinsically connected. We believe that impactful mental health services must go beyond the typical and consider the persons in their entirety, including the environment in which they live and the quality lifestyle they have adopted.

The establishment of safe and trusting relationships early in treatment is critical to the creation of the therapeutic web that will come to encompass our clients. The extent to which our clients become engaged in treatment and embrace the recovery process is everyone’s responsibility: from administrative assistants, childcare workers, foster parents to mental health therapists. The engagement activities conducted by our staff during Phase I continue throughout the client’s time with The Village Network.

An accurate assessment is absolutely essential to the successful implementation of the neurobiological and trauma-informed approach of NMT.  The professional helper trained in NMT has a unique understanding and respect for the foundational and developmental activities that are essential to a regulated and healthy stress response system. As such, NMT holds the critical developmental activities that occur during the intrauterine, perinatal, infancy, early childhood and subsequent developmental stages. We are especially interested in the relational health of the infant and any adverse experiences that may have occurred during these critical developmental stages.

The treatment plan that is developed during this phase is based upon the accurate and neurobiologically informed assessment (NMT) and is the foundation of the therapeutic matrix that surround our clients during the treatment phase. The development of the treatment plan includes aspects of the “whole” person and seeks input from a variety of sources. Among these sources, the most import is the consumer themselves.

The activities engaged in during the Treatment Phase are laid out in the treatment plan. The therapeutic activities offered to our clients are varied and encompassing. They range from music and movement therapy, art therapy, group therapy, cognitive, social skills building, family therapy and insight oriented individual therapy.

Discharge planning begins the day the client enters into treatment and continues throughout treatment. We recognize the importance of discharge planning and, whenever possible, we include the client’s family and other significant people in the discharge planning process.