Mental Health Matters
Todd Weatherly, Therapeutic Consultant and mental health professional hosts #MentalHealthMatters. Interviewing doctors and therapists, treatment professionals, organizational leaders, and other members of the mental health community about the importance of mental health awareness, treatment and the future of addressing mental health in the US. Discussing how to support mental health in our communities from hospitals to the dinner table and what to do when crisis arises.
Mental Health Matters
Revolutionizing Family Mental Health in Adolescent Treatment with Mary Marcantonio
Join us on Mental Health Matters to share time with Mary Marcantonio, the visionary founder and CEO of Equinox Counseling and Wellness Center. With over three decades of experience, Mary introduces us to the innovative Equinox treatment model, which uniquely integrates residential treatment, adventure therapy, and community-based clinical settings to offer comprehensive support for youth and their families.
In our discussion, we uncover the powerful role of the Parent Leadership Academy in equipping parents with the tools they need to break free from ineffective parenting cycles. Mary sheds light on how weekly sessions with a parent leadership coach can guide parents towards adopting principled, relationship-focused methods. We also explore the broader implications of community support and family systems approaches, emphasizing the significant impact of real-time guidance in nurturing healthier family dynamics and improved child well-being.
Reflecting on the evolving landscape of community and parenting, we discuss the shift from communal child-rearing practices to more isolated, screen-centric lifestyles. Mary shares her thoughts on the critical need for physical activity and direct social interaction in today's tech-heavy world, particularly in the wake of the pandemic's disruption of social norms. We spotlight the urgency of educational reform and how Equinox is blazing a trail in creating innovative models for better mental health outcomes. Join us for a compelling conversation filled with transformative insights and pioneering strategies aimed at keeping families strong and connected.
Hello folks, welcome once again to Mental Health Matters. On WPBM 1037, the voice of Asheville, I'm Todd Weatherly, your host behavioral health professional and therapeutic consultant, and with me today. I'm very happy to have what I would call a comrade, a fellow educator and treatment professional in arms, but somebody who's created a really unique and wonderful program I have. Mary Marcantonio is the founder and CEO of Equinox Counseling and Wellness Center, an intensive treatment program for youth and young adults experiencing complex psychiatric, emotional and behavioral issues, located in Denver and just outside of Houston, texas. Mary received her bachelor's degree in business management and therapeutic recreation that's a cool combo right there From Mesa State College and attended University of Northern Colorado and Leslie College for a master's coursework in clinical psychology. She has over 30 years of experience in developing and delivering programs for youth and families struggling with complex mental, emotional and behavioral health challenges, which led her to closely examine the treatment path that separates youth from their parents and family system. That's something we're going to talk about today. For sure, she has become a prominent voice within the professional treatment community on the importance of parent and family involvement in the treatment process. Having developed the Equinox treatment model, this model is integrated into their state-of-the-art treatment centers for youth and young adults, with specialized programming for those who present with the combined complexities of neurodivergence, autism, adhd and ADD, anxiety, depression, ocd, mood disorders, trauma, disruptive detachment and executive functioning disorder A lot of those kind of walk hand in hand with one another. A program model that combines key elements of residential treatment, adventure therapy and community based clinical settings to help keep youth and families together on the path towards healing, involving sophisticated clinical outpatient PHP for those who don't know, it's partial hospitalization programming and in-home intensive care. Additionally, mary is the co-founder of the Parent Leadership Academy, which is an integrated component of the Equinox treatment model. The Parent Leadership Academy has helped thousands of parents learn to parent with confidence, love, warmth and compassion, while at the same time holding important boundaries necessary to improve their child's functioning. That's a big one. Parent Leadership Academy teaches parents that alignment with family values and parenting a child with complex mental, emotional and behavioral health issues no longer are mutually exclusive to one another. Mary is also a national trainer, speaker and clinical program evaluator. She speaks trains on topics that include technology addiction, how to successfully intervene, tips for effective parent leadership, developing competent, confident children, how to raise respectful, responsible teens, the dangers of using. There's got to be a book here somewhere. Consequences of behavior modification systems. Sexual safety for special needs children. That's a huge issue in the community right now.
Speaker 1:Mary's also been featured on PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and ABC's Nightline for her work with military youth and families, because they get jumped around a lot. My wife is actually one of those children. She's one of those children who, you know, suddenly is located from New Jersey to Turkey or Turkey to Hawaii and father's gone for three months and mom's like what do I do with three kids? You know like she talks about that life as well. It's pretty, uh, it's pretty, it's pretty uh um problematic for the children that experienced that.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, it also proves how resilient they can. They can be. But, mary, welcome to the show. Thank you for being with us.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm. I'm so glad that you were able to make time and, um, you know, for those who are you're listening, I just have to point out a visual aspect, which is your logo. I take it, the drawing painting, this wonderful piece of artwork on the back of your wall. Tell me about that, because you were talking about it a minute ago. Just tell us what you know, why it's there, what it represents to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I will. Why it's there? What it represents to you? Yeah, yeah, I will. So actually, our logo is our branded logo is a little bit different than this but this is a piece that really represents a lot of how we think, a lot of our work, informs our work. This beautiful organ that we all have and the different ways in which people express things, learn things, the brain is just a very, very amazing organ. We are just happy to be able to represent all the different magical pieces that come out of this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I really like the artwork and love the. You know, there's this representation of the brain, but there's all these wonderful pictures that come out of this. Yeah, I mean, I really like the artwork and love the. You know, there's this representation of the brain, but there's all these wonderful pictures that come out of it.
Speaker 1:So, if people get a chance, they should take a look at it. But the you know, the I think the place where you and I can kind of start talking about this, because there's there's a lot to unpack here. We could spend a long time talking about these things. And you know, know, I was mentioning earlier to you about, you know, coming from Masters in education and spending time trying to take what you know experiential methods into a school system or experiential method is methods into therapeutic environments had a fair amount of time starting out kind of wilderness, wilderness programming and outdoor programming for troubled youth. And you know, the world has grown up a little since the early 90s when I got into the field and you as well. We've both got a very similar number of years in the field and you know we see a lot of these models trying to adapt to clinical sophistication.
Speaker 1:You know the wilderness model tries to adapt its model to having, you know, therapists and more sophisticated clinical processes take place in the field and in transition and all these pieces. And then you've got treatment models that are out there that are pretty sophisticated but they are also isolative, you know. Yeah, you know the child being taken out of the home environment or wherever they are, and you know there are times when that's appropriate. But you have created a model that isn't just kind of you'll also see treatment programs that have got these, you know they do a little bit of adventure and they do a little bit of neuro and they do a little bit of this and that and the other and they're kind of one-offs or they're, you know, adjunctive to whatever primary treatment model they're using, and I'm glad that we're seeing that.
Speaker 1:But based on what your model is. Your model is taking these models, recognizing the importance of aspects that they've had, but bringing them together in a way that is greater than the sum of their parts, operating in an outpatient kind of setting Kids are coming in but they're still going home at night and then offering a lot of intensive support to families at home, which is where a lot of trouble begins, right, you know a lot of where this boundary setting and other kinds of things that the families just aren't necessarily good at when they find themselves in these positions, and you're giving them support around that. Like, what is it that brought you to this model? How did you? I know you got a lot of years of experience, but give us, give us a little story about your journey here yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think, very similar to you, I I grew up in high levels of working in high levels of treatment care, so started out in residential treatment.
Speaker 2:We had a wilderness component to all of our residential centers and there's so many really important parts about kids being in those types of treatment settings.
Speaker 2:But I think what we've recognized and we really started to think about this in the way of, okay, well, there's some missing parts and pieces to this model, and really that's the community at large, that's the parent system, it's the family system, and so we just kept coming back to what are really what will be a model that will meet the needs of the entire family system and not have kids having to leave their home environment to go get the help that they need. And so we just kept thinking about it, thinking about it and started to really evaluate what are the best parts and pieces from our perspective of using an adventure in wilderness therapy experiential in the moment, work and learning with kids, residential or a hospital setting. And we started to really come to realize that it's possible to develop a residential style treatment community that is home community and center-based, where kids get to go sleep with their head on their own pillow and practice, practice, practice in real life.
Speaker 1:Right. Well, you may know Will White. He's got a podcast out there called Tales from the Field. He's been in the field for a very long time wilderness guy. I love Will Early on.
Speaker 1:I got to be in a conference and he was talking and he said this he said one of the things that we've got to be careful about, and something we need to figure out how to do differently, is that we seem to be really good at being, at causing or helping kids become really good at being in wilderness and not necessarily being good outside of that. They come out of wilderness and you know the transfer doesn't happen. The generalization piece of experiential model does not take place once they leave the context of the field. And you know. And then, of course, one of the you know, just kind of a standard whenever you're working with families. As they go, they're like, well, we don't want them to have their phone, we don't have. You know they get nervous about all these things. It's like, look, I want them to be making those mistakes in front of thick, you know clinical professionals so that they can guide them and see where they're making the mistakes and help them set their own healthy boundaries and do all these things that are going to look like what they need to practice when they actually get out in the world.
Speaker 1:You're doing that in your programming in real time and so, and you know, based on the kind of kid that you serve, you're also serving a pretty complicated kid. You know somebody that's got a lot of stuff that's going on and you know maybe some rule outs and we always talk about these for your program. Correct me if I'm wrong. You know a person who's kids being violent or there's a lot of this kind of outwardly expressive and dangerous behavior. Sometimes there's a. You know those kids have to have some other level of containment.
Speaker 1:But you know there are a lot of kids out there who are experiencing these anxiety symptoms and you know depression and mood disorder symptoms and all these other pieces and they get. They can get pretty complex and end up going off to these therapeutic environments and everything else and they walk this path of separation from home and back to home. What are you like in the programming that you're seeing and the kids that you're serving? How do you find the shift seems to be? You're able to give them the kind of support that they need so that they can still be at home and work on these things. Come back to an environment work some more Like what is the landing look like for the kids that are coming in and what is the kind of that initial process which is kind of the hardest time right with a kid? What does that look like for you when you're serving these kids in your program?
Speaker 2:Yeah well, so a lot of the kids that we see in fact you know a good percentage of the kids that we see are having very complex diagnostic profiles and have really been over the course of many, many years, seeing a lot of very talented individual therapists dabbling kind of family therapy with the parents, some parent interaction.
Speaker 2:Those interventions are not necessarily producing the results that we would like them to, really based on the complexities of the kiddo and their profile.
Speaker 2:And then we're seeing kids that are bouncing in and out of hospital settings in wilderness therapy, sometimes one, two, three times wilderness therapy, then on to residential treatment or therapeutic boarding school and getting further and further away from their family system for longer periods of time. So the entry point for kids when they land at Equinox really is our start of the parent work that we do and that's a key critical component of how kids, how families, enter our program. And we have a family functional assessment that we've created to help us get to understand kids, families, siblings, in a very accurate way in a two to four week period of time, so that we're starting with the place from a place of accuracy. And so the kids come in, they come into a very kind and gentle treatment environment. The peer group is amazing here, welcoming, and I think for a lot of kids this is the first time that they have really felt like, okay, I can be myself here yeah immediately settling for kids so you find that I mean there's a comfort to it.
Speaker 1:It it sounds like you know, I don't know, when you go away to another environment you kind of have to test all the new limits, right? Not the kids, who probably you know, I'm sure they test limits with you, but if you're going away out of the home like you're reestablishing all this limit stuff that you have to test and so you might, I wonder if, seeing kids come out of wilderness and two or three times and things like that and for whatever reason, it didn't stick or work, Are you seeing the behaviors that they demonstrate when they go away to treatment versus when they show up at your door, Like what's the difference between those you?
Speaker 1:know, I'm sure you're getting clinical reads like well, when they showed up, they were a hot mess and they did all these things. Are you seeing the same behavior? Are you seeing different behaviors? How does the behavior differ between your environment and a going-away residential treatment environment?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, todd, imagine what it's like for a young person to hear, not just on their first day, but then to also experience, that their parents are going to be making changes and that their parents are going to be getting help. Imagine what it's like for that particular young person.
Speaker 1:Hold them. They were supposed to get help, you know yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they just really the kids really appreciate that and we we're really open with the kids about the fact that their parents will be making changes and I think for a lot of kids that's very settling and perhaps for some kids it's maybe the first time that they've ever really experienced that their parents are going to be participating at the level that they're going to be participating. And we have people, we have team members, who are specifically engaged with parents to help them make necessary changes and what we say is to help your family operate better together.
Speaker 1:Right. Well, that kind of takes us to the parenting side, right? We wanted to talk about that for sure, but you may remember, I'm sure you do. You probably remember the old love and logic model, do you remember?
Speaker 2:that yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, when I, when I was reading about the program and talking to some of the folks that are that are part of your program, it kind of came up for me. It's like you know, we want to teach patient parents how to be compassionate and loving and kind of their but still hold firm limits and things like that. Tell me, tell us a little bit about that intensive work you're doing with the parents, like you know. Lay out this model for us a little bit, if you will.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So parenting is hard, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:I noticed.
Speaker 2:You're a parent? Okay, I am too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the you know, this is the Parent Leadership Academy. So this is the model that the foundation of the Parent Leadership Academy. I'm really curious about this. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So parenting's hard in general.
Speaker 2:And then imagine having a child with all of the complexities that you know, with all of the complexities that we all treat in different settings and different capacities and whatnot.
Speaker 2:And parents One of our primary goals as parents is to preserve our child's self-esteem and it really can be counterintuitive around how to do that. And so we really take parents through the paces of exiting their ineffective cycle with their kiddo and we teach them how to parent a child with complex psychiatric, emotional, behavioral health challenges. That's really different type of parenting and we also help parents to learn how to really parent from a place, a principally based place, instead of dealing with this situation in isolation, this situation, this situation to begin to think more principally about how to remain in a relationship with parents, with their child, at the same time of holding important boundaries. So every parent that comes into our program is working with a parent leadership coach. They meet with them every week. We teach them parenting principles, we teach them about child and adolescent development, we teach them about all of the clinical diagnoses that kids are experiencing, their medications, we teach them how to parent a child with these complexities and we bring them into relationship with other parents as well.
Speaker 1:Right, Community support yeah, huge, huge, huge piece, I mean. I I think that one of the things that we introduce families to um, we even have a group of our own and find them a group, but this, like other parents, a really solid group and kind of well-run group and and monitored or moderated group of parents that have the same kinds of needs. It's one of the like moms especially are like. This has really helped. You know what I mean totally.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, and you know, you know this that parents are in cycles of, in patterns of behavior with their children and there are effective, healthy, you know just patterns that don't really need attending to, and then there's patterns that are deeply ingrained, that are ineffective and unhealthy and not working in their relationship. So, one of the cool things imagine what it's like to be in a in a tough situation with your child. Be able to reach out to your parent leadership coach and then get a script back of what to say in the moment, in real time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, we find ourselves doing a lot of that work in the crisis end but, like you know, it's surprising to me how much the words are important. Um, when parents are like oh wow, that was really good, can I write that down? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1:like they, they need a script and they really got to hold on to this wording until they get comfortable with it um, and you know, as you speak, I I hear family systems model kind of coming out my brain, but if I was to put money on it, I'd say that you probably have taken family systems and done with it Not only you know the same thing that you've done with many of the other aspects of programming that you've done, and put them together and made them greater than some of your parts. How have you, how have you advanced on family systems in the, in the parent leadership model that you're using?
Speaker 2:Well. Family systems approach, knowledge and wisdom is very important in this work at any level of care, and I hold high regard for our chief clinical officer, irene Scheidt, who really leads our team clinically and is just phenomenal in the way in which she trains and teaches our clinicians, our therapeutic care specialists, to be integrating family systems work, but other types of work as well, and family therapy is a component of our program here. The thing that's pretty unique, I think, and very engaging, is that everything that we do here at Equinox is experiential in nature, and so we got to talk. We talk a lot, but we bring in all the different components of the program, the foundations that the kids are learning, parents are learning and parenting to help our family therapy work go very well and produce really healthy families at the end of treatment.
Speaker 1:And, like you know, we've talked a little bit about the beginning of it. We've talked a little bit about the things that happen as a result of, you know, a child coming in and kind of feeling the comfort of their family's going to work together. Let's talk about the tail end. Let's talk about, like you know, kind of what are the outcomes that you're seeing with families? What are the things that are happening for a family in the kind of transformational stages of where this starts to take root and things start to work.
Speaker 1:Because, you know, I feel like in our work, because we're piecing it together right, we're going through treatment and maybe it's residential and not all, and and they're often like one program does one of those things and another program does another one of those things, and what we end up being is this continuity piece. You know, we end up being like how does the, how do these environments translate to one another, whereas your model is like it's all operating in real time in the same place, right? So what you know, I'm curious to hear what kind of difference in outcome. You know you've looked out there in the field, you've been part of residential treatment and all those other forms of care. What's the difference that you're seeing in your model?
Speaker 2:Yeah's the difference that you're seeing in your model. Yeah, so the difference is so we have what we call our treatment trifecta, where we bring in, we're working to accomplish change, sustainable change in the home environment, learning and integration from what occurs in the treatment environment or centers and then from a community standpoint and over the course we're a six. We can be a six to 12 to 18 month program. So we're not a program that is trying to sprint to the finish line. We're a program that's really, really working to work from the get to the etiology and build skill and competency and confidence and integration of sociality and stabilization and all of those, those things. And so over the course of that 6 to 12 to 18 months, kids are titrating down and families are titrating down in the level of intensity.
Speaker 2:So we've got a five-phase system that the first three phases of treatment are more intensive because we're working on stabilization and practicing integrating. Kids are practicing all of the time, every day, all day long. They don't even know they're doing it. So more intensely on the integration of the program and then, beginning in phase four, we're incrementally moving kids out into other environments, reintegrating into the school environment, starting to look at employment for our older kids, more sociality outside healthy peer groups, and so I think, because of that phase system, our outcomes are. We're really proud of our outcomes, I would say. I would tell you that we have 100% reintegration, sustainable reintegration back into the academic environment. So many of the kids that we see have needed to be an out-of-home placement, which there's a place for that out of school, their primary school. Healthy technology 90 to 95 percent of the kids are having the tech addiction and so we work on healthy technology plans. 85, 86% of our kids are sustaining and healthy, safe technology use skills for sociality.
Speaker 2:So we measured that with different ways that we measure our outcomes, because it's not just success, or yeah, I've seen some outcomes measures.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure. I'm like are you sure you're measuring what it is that you want to be measuring?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:It's really important, just checking some boxes, you know.
Speaker 2:Well, and that can be really disappointing for parents as well. Oh yeah, I mean obviously.
Speaker 1:The one thing I was going to ask as well is what's the kind of kid that you're getting? I was going to ask as well is what, what's the kind of kid that you're getting Like? And and by that I mean you know, it sounds like you know you've gotten a, you've got a child who's been unsuccessful in, you know, say, wilderness treatment. They've done two or three runs, which tells me that they've already kind of gotten back into trouble or back into a crisis with the family finding you, are you finding the kids coming, you know? Are they coming out of hospital environments? Are they coming out of treatment facilities? Are they stepping down? Are they coming straight from home? What's the mix of the kid that's coming into either your Denver or Houston programs?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really all of those environments. So many kids that we see are bouncing in and out of acute hospital settings, the acuity of safety and suicidality and self-harm. We have a specific transition process. When we're, when we are transitioning kiddos from higher levels of care, we have kids on the and we just call this on the prevention side of things kids that we can intervene with effectively before it's necessary that kids are really evaluated and looked at to be an out-of-home placement. And then kids that have been at therapeutic boarding school or residential treatment and they're needing to come home and we want to get them back to their family environment. We want to get them back to their family system and with their parent system. So the entry point is really from all of those environments.
Speaker 1:You know I had Dr Ross Ellenhorner on the show. Who's Ellenhorner's got I would call ita comparable model. But for adults who suffer from, you know, severe and persistent psychiatric illness, they're supporting them in an independent environments and really just kind of doing this. And he's got a new book coming out, but we talked about this as a topic. He called it the holding, and just what you're doing is kind of holding space for this person's recovery, this person's ability to get well, but also agency and the other components that make for a successful independence and all those pieces. And it sounds to me a lot of what you're doing. You're kind of you're holding for these families and for these kids that are coming into your program.
Speaker 1:One question I asked him, I'm going to ask you, and he had an interesting response. I'm curious about yours. Do you think it's true to say that we're seeing a lot more complex child today? And you know, because of lack of treatment or cycles through, you know, clinical environments where whatever they did didn't work, and then misdiagnoses, and hospital environments which are not supportive at all, and just all these factors that go into care that on one hand can get very good and very sophisticated and other times can also go kind of terribly wrong. Are you seeing a more complex kid than, say, the kid we saw in the 90s or the 2000s, like than, say, the kid we saw in the 90s or?
Speaker 2:the 2000s. Like, what's your take on that? Yeah, yeah, I think we are. I think we are, and you know, one of our mantras around here and the way we operate is we just got to get back to basics. And some of those basics in life are being able to go outside and play and not be on a screen talking to friends all the time looking at social media, but being out there and really engaging with people your own age and having fun and coming home when the dinner bell rings. But I think that there are, there's been a shift and change in how we use technology and how kids are actually encouraged to be on screens at times where previously, decades ago, we would have never even had that as a possibility for kids to be engaged in relationships. So you know, we're taking kids back to just getting back to basics.
Speaker 1:You know the thing that he said, one of the things that he mentioned when I asked him this question. I'll get your take on this. He said part of it is because of how we've how, as a society, we've changed the role of community. We're so so, you know, families are having to. You know, you were never meant to raise children by yourself no one or two parents raising a kid by themselves. You were meant to raise, you were meant to raise children in community, with, you know, grandparents and neighbors and friends and people that could surround them with care. And you know part of what part of what we you know the replacement has been and neighbors and friends and people that could surround them with care.
Speaker 1:No-transcript. Put them in front of a screen. They'll be quiet. Let them play video games, let them watch something, let them do something. That is where I don't have to pay attention to them. I've certainly, you know, as a parent, I certainly did that on occasion, but I'm also. But I'm also, you know, you and I are of an age. I don't know what your childhood looked like, but my childhood has been a lot of like. Cartoons went off at 10, 30, you know, and you were outside. Yeah, you couldn't just stream anything all the time. You know there was, there were limits and it's like, well, I don't want to watch soap operas, so I'm going to go outside and play, right that, until you know if it was summertime. You did that till it got dark, till the dinner bell rang. Yeah, I mean I. The funny story is my mom had a. My mom had a megaphone.
Speaker 2:Okay, oh, my God, I love that.
Speaker 1:So that cause I would. I would be up to a mile away at the Creek like roaming through catching critters. Yeah, she was like you know, I love that.
Speaker 2:I love that. Oh, my God.
Speaker 1:You know I, you know it. Just you know, nobody thought twice about me being a mile away. You know, because what I was doing was like playing with dirt and mud and rocks and and critters and and I would hear her voice. You know, at the, at the high pit, like I know, at the at the high pit, like I'd hit it and I would start, I would start trucking it back home because a new dinner was on the table. You know, they're like my orientation to, to media and and technology. While I use it extensively, I'm a huge movie buff, I love, you know, all the things that my kids love, but I just there, there's almost this internal shut off. It's like, yeah, I'm done watching now and I need to go outside or I need to go and do this instead. I need to stop looking at these screens now because I'm tired of it like there's a part of me that was generated that way that our kids don't.
Speaker 1:You know a lot of kids don't have anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, well, being out, being out in nature, being out in sun, out in the sun, right, higher levels of depression when kids are inside and they're on screens. I think there's some other variables. So I don't know about you, know when you're, I don't know how old your kids are, but when my kids were elementary, middle school and they were driving, we took our kids across town to go to school because of the school systems.
Speaker 1:That's the one you needed to be at. This was the good school right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's not the same as walking down the street. When I grew up, I was walking down the street going to the local elementary school. Grew up, I was walking down the street going to the local elementary school, and so the other thing that I think has really changed for families and communities and kids is that parents are taking their kids all over town to go to school and they don't have that intact friendship group in their neighborhood and so that sociality and that connection is oftentimes by being on group video games, social media.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm sure you've heard it a thousand times A kiddo will say well, I have 500 friends. Well, do you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, are they really your friends?
Speaker 2:Right, right, but that's how they perceive friendship. Yeah, it's a better's how they perceive friendship.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a better in pictures model of friendship.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:My Instagram images are fun and interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, and that's what's so special about a therapeutic milieu residential style therapeutic milieu is that ability to get back into friendship and relationship with people your own age, without the use of screens and learning about how that works.
Speaker 1:Capturing community again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, everybody needs their tribe.
Speaker 1:And you know, we were actually a pretty small place in the first place, which is where I live, and so my kids got a glimpse of it. You know, we did live just down the street from the, from the elementary school and there was a period of time where the kids rode the bike, you know, to elementary and we had a group of kids from not that far away in the community and they would, you know, it was the, the moms, and the mom brought the kids and the kids played in the yard and there was a friend group and those you know. And the mom brought the kids and the kids played the yard and there was a friend group and those you know. We captured some of those pieces but there's even a difference.
Speaker 1:So my, my kids are 18 and 21 okay so there's even a difference between how my 21 year old experienced a friend group and my 18 year old experienced his friend group. We had some similar pieces but he, he, he ended up having more of that like online connection environment because he was also, you know, and that picked up in the pandemic, yeah, you know. So we had that pandemic period. My, my older kid was already driving and able to go places and maintain some connection. My youngest was not, and so his connection my youngest was not, and so his connection to his friend group was was through these, you know these channels. Fortunately, neither one of them gravitated towards social media. It was more like an online gaming. But I noticed a difference between my kids and others who spend a lot more time on the screen, social media and that is their, their version of connection.
Speaker 1:And, just, you know, even my oldest friend group like it translates to like being afraid to go into places and like the DMV and get a new ID or go grocery shopping and buy your own stuff because you don't want to deal with the people that are there, or, you know, even drive.
Speaker 1:I mean, I hear a lot of families where the you don't want to deal with the people that are there or, you know, even drive. I mean, there's a lot, I hear a lot of families where the kids don't want to drive, they don't want the responsibility of driving or the pain or the stress or the anxiety that it causes. Um, and are you like, even with the, the ages that you, are you seeing some of that turn? Like what's the turn look like in change for a child in your programming? They come in, you're doing some, some restorative work. I think you know real like brain restorative, social, restorative, nature restorative work. What do you see becoming differences in the way they kind of interact with the world outside of the program when they start to get on that transformative side of the programming?
Speaker 2:It's really really remarkable. We're seeing kids who have and are continuing to develop their own sense of self-efficacy, their confidence, their competence and who they are and how they show up in this world, their desire. You know I was just talking with someone this morning about you know the difference between an introvert and an extrovert and you know a lot of parents will say, well, my child's an extrovert or an introvert and they're just really. You know, they don't need friends and they're, they're fine, you know, in isolation and it's really just.
Speaker 2:it's very sad and so through the course of treatment, as the kids are developing the those, the ability to make friends, keep friends to be more respectful in those friendships and functioning in a school environment. You know school's a school is a primary environment for kids and it's not just so that they can go there and get book smart yeah, it's their primary social environment as well. Yeah, and it's really wounding if you can't, if you're not experiencing inclusion and acceptance and being seen in that environment. And the kids every one of our kids are going back to school.
Speaker 1:They are really, really having a positive experience in that way. I get to come out and visit you here soon, so I'm excited about that myself.
Speaker 2:We're excited.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm excited to get out and be on campus and talk about ways in which we're going to start collaborating with shared clients, which is going to be neat and fun. But, mary, it's been really, really great to have you on the show. I'm just, you know, I kind of came out of graduate school. It's like we've got to change the education system. You know, like this, this grand kind of thing, and it um, and part of it is it's very hard to change systems that are already exist. It's, you know, so the part of what you have, what you have to do is create new models, um, and let let change kind of follow you, and I think that's really what you're doing with with equinox and the model that you're doing, that like you're really leading the charge and I'm so excited to see the work that you're doing. I'm excited to come and be with you. I'm really grateful that you're able to be with us today on the show.
Speaker 1:This has been Mental Health Matters on WPBM 1037, the voice of Asheville. Mary, thank you so much for being with us.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I appreciate it. We'll be you next time.