Recently I was speaking with a sales manager, and in the conversation I was reminded that his daughter was a previous Lakeside student. As I typically do, I asked about her experience in one of our programs. He was effusive about how well she did while at Lakeside and that she now has returned to her public school. It is always encouraging to me to have those conversations.
However, the conversation did not end there. My next question was how she was doing post-Lakeside, and he described her current behavior with concern. She had just lost one of her best friends in an accident. The grief of that sudden loss had overwhelmed her, and she now was struggling to be active in school which concerned her parents and her school staff. Upon hearing that, I was able to offer that her Lakeside counselor would be happy to be help with her current grief. After all, a strong therapeutic relationship had been formed around her previous issues and there was a level of trust for her care that had been established.
She told her dad that she wanted to contact her previous Lakeside counselor, which I highly recommended. I know that once a student is at Lakeside in any of our programs, our staff is ready to assist them for any future life problems or crisis. We experience those moments often in our school programs.
Another opportunity for continued support was found in the availability of Lakeside In-School Counselor staff in her school district. This is a program where we place Lakeside counselors in school districts who can help provide support for students while in school. The same quality, training and capability exists as another part of the continuum of care that Lakeside and her school district offered to her.
Further, Lakeside has a Mobile Support Program that offers both academic and clinical support to any student who is unable to attend any school program due to the severity of their life circumstances. It is a way to make sure students do not fall into the cracks of our systems when there are few resources available.
As I spoke with this concerned dad, I also offered him our Intro to Trauma course that is free of charge that we have placed on our lakecloud.ai website. This was a way for him to understand the impact of trauma on his daughter. He immediately felt that they both could use it in light of the current tragedy. It would help to normalize some of the stress responses and give some training on regulation and coping with her loss.
As I walked away from that meeting with this dad, I was very thankful for all that we had built at Lakeside Educational Network. For this teenager, Lakeside was a place of encouragement, healing and hope. Yet the network that has been established for these many decades offered her and her family a continuum of care that will be continually present in her life and community. This to me is a broad community model of care that we need to create all throughout our country if we are going to provide the care our youth and families need.
Gerry Vassar
President/CEO
