Making A Difference

Coming into Falcon Ridge Ranch, ‘R’ was so frustrated with academics, she couldn’t see the  light at the end of the tunnel.  She’d been bounced around from school to school in her home state, rarely at one place long enough to make progress toward graduation.  The trauma, loss, and deep sadness that influenced her decisions and complicated her life seemed overwhelming.  ‘R’ felt buried.

After she arrived at Falcon Ranch, however, a spark ignited in her.  A wonderful, supportive school advocate worked with ‘R’ and the academic team to draft a plan to turn this spark into a flame. The plan wasn’t easy:  it gave ‘R’ just six months to finish more than a year’s schoolwork.  This was quite a challenge for a student who struggled to retain material, for whom schoolwork was an uphill battle.  But she decided to tackle it.

Fast forward to October 2018. Due to her hard work and perseverance, with the help of teachers and tutors, ‘R’ received her high school diploma. A more proud set of parents was hard to find on graduation day. ‘R’ embodies the bravery, grit, and hard work needed to balance academics and social emotional success!  We can’t wait to see what she accomplishes next!

Recently, I received a call from a mother of an adult client who’d been brought to us because he suffered from Agoraphobia so badly, he’d been unable to leave the house for roughly 7-10 years.  His parents supported him and brought him meals and anything else he needed. He had no contact with anyone else outside the home.

We had this man do a Psychiatric  Evaluation with Adair Deicke. It was a little shaky to start, and there were times the parents cancelled appointments for him because on that day, he couldn’t face the outside world.  With the right combination of medications (and faithfulness in taking them), he eventually began to feel better.  This led him on a path to stability.  He has since gotten a job in New York City, has his own apartment and is doing extremely well.  The mom called to the thank the whole team at Sequel, especially Adair Deicke, for helping him to overcome his Agoraphobia and to deal with his panic attacks.

My name is ‘A’, and I entered Lava Heights as a confused and broken fifteen-year-old girl. I had gone through abuse and was left with trauma prior to entering the program. While I was there, I learned many ways to cope with my trauma and  experienced healing through the staff’s support.

I have always had a passion for art, but Lava Heights helped me discover my love for dance and music. I learned so much from the people there and formed many friendships with some of the students. I came out of my shell, and by the time I left, I was confident in myself. I now know how to handle stressful life situations and have acquired basic life skills. I can honestly say that Lava Heights was a safe place to find my identity; it was a life-changing experience!  That’s why I’m so grateful to the staff and the teachers at Lava.

I was sitting in the office of the director of the Belfast office when a worker, Mike, and a client, ‘T’, came to the door. The client showed us a bunch of  vegetables and stammered,”my garden”. He took a few steps into the hall, turned, and, looking at the floor, added, “organic.” The director, quite touched, said she loved “organic” but wasn’t quite sure how he  knew that!

I asked about ‘T’,  and the director told me how he and his brother came to services about eight years ago.  They’d been raised by their grandparents, and it was deemed that a residential placement was necessary. ‘T’ had severe Autism with frequent explosive episodes, while his brother had severe behavioral issues. The director selected her best employee, Mike, and put him into action in ‘T’s home.

‘T’ thrived under the services. His creativity was awakened and nurtured as a therapeutic outlet for his frustrations and challenges living with Autism. This coping skill brought him success. With the help of Mike,  ‘T’ had the opportunity to connect with his  community by selling his creations, wind chimes made with sea glass and handmade pottery. He enjoyed his own success. ‘T’ was 8 years old when he began services; I met him when he was  13, and he recently graduated from the children’s program at age 21.  A residential placement was thwarted. Through years of consistent service, he remains in residence with his grandparents to this day.

Bernalillo Academy is very proud of the work we did with a young lady, ‘M’, who came to us with some complex medical and mental health diagnoses. Sixteen-year-old ‘M’ exhibited several attention-seeking behaviors.  One was faking seizures so skillfully, one couldn’t tell they weren’t real. Additionally, ‘M’ could be very aggressive when she didn’t get her way.

Sadly, she was also nearly blind due to glaucoma. ‘M’ was also morbidly obese, which further complicated her medical conditions.  Well, her time at Bernalillo Academy was an awesome success.  One of the things that encouraged ‘M’ was the singing and dancing that was available to her.  In fact, she became the star of Bernalillo Idol.  Naturally, this helped her confidence, and everything else flowed from there. Not only did ‘M’ lose 57 pounds in her six-and-a-half months with us, she stopped her self-harming and completely phased out her pseudo-seizures.  By the time ‘M’ went back to her mom, she’d learned how much she had to share with the world.