Children’s Mental Health – Community Connections

Addressing life's challenges, and celebrating the successes

We’re dedicated to working with families and children to provide individualized services that address life’s challenges. You’ll work with trained professionals to determine which services should be selected, based upon the needs and strengths identified by the parents, child, teachers, and our professionals during initial meetings. Services are intended to support the development of new skills for the enrolled child and their family, and enhance the functioning of an entire family in their everyday environments.

Clinical Services

Individual, family, and group counseling sessions with a Master’s level mental health professional. We also offer psychiatric services.

Community-based Services

Support services in our activity spaces, the community, schools and family homes. They can be one-on-one, in a group setting or with the family.

Therapeutic Foster Care

State-licensed homes with specially trained providers to care for children. Homes are located in Ketchikan and on Prince of Wales Island.

Planning and Providing Services

All services utilize a treatment team approach that asks the family, our staff, and other individuals involved in the child’s life to provide ideas and input toward goals and activities.

The treatment team establishes goals and objectives to work towards during service times. The objectives detail specific emotional, social, or behavioral skills for the child and family to learn and demonstrate. The activities that occur during services are designed to teach or practice new skills that will lead to positive functioning at home, school, at work or in the community.

Our Philosophy

All services are connected to the Community Connections mission to provide services that are chosen by the individual to encourage independence, community belonging and quality of life. We believe that children have a right to be safe and feel safe.

Children’s Mental Health has a dedication to working in partnership with families and the community to provide appropriate therapeutic support services to help children, adolescents and their parents to reach their highest potential. We believe that treatment is most successful when all members of the treatment team effectively coordinate interventions and goals.

Frameworks

Services are provided within the intersection of the following frameworks.

Community Connections’ Core Values: Strength in Diversity, Excellence and Continuous Improvement, Maximize Community Participation, Professional Integrity and Respect, & Collaboration and Shared Leadership.
The Ten Principles of Wrap-a-round services provided by the National Wraparound Initiative which include: Family voice and Choice, Team Based, Natural Supports, Collaboration, Community Based, Culturally Competent, Individualized, Strengths-based, Persistence and Outcome based decision making, provide guidance for service approaches.
Trauma Informed: All services are tailored to provide services and relationships with staff that seek to minimize behavioral and emotional triggers. We work to understand the events and situations that have shaped and influenced the client, especially those that are traumatic and adverse.
Family Centered: Service delivery and interventions incorporate the entire family as much as possible and to the degree chosen by the individual. We believe that children are best served within the context of their family and seek to involve parents, and care givers in all levels of treatment.

The provision of psychiatric and medication services are grounded in the belief that in individual cases medication may be helpful in alleviating symptoms but that medication is most effective when utilized with learning new skills and healthy lifestyle choices. We do not provide psychiatric services independently from work with a clinician or other team members on building coping and life skills.

Celebrating 33 Years of Changed Lives!