Five County July 2014 Newsletter

Five County July 2014 Newsletter

Submitted by Nicky Chavez on Mon, 07/14/2014 - 2:44pm

Is there a doctor in the house???

We are extremely proud of our clinician Dave Anderson who just recently earned his Doctorate in social Work. He has been working for the last three and a half years on this endeavor and earned his doctorate through Cappella University out of Minnesota, Minneapolis. He did his Dissertation on teen violence, titled “Addressing Teen Dating Violence Within a rural community: A Participatory Action research Study”. Dave is on our clinical team at Five County Youth Rehabilitation Center. He is married and the father of three beautiful children. We want to congratulate him on this huge endeavor!

DBT Skills Corner

“Just Breathe…….” How many of us are so busy in this world that we don’t even take the time to even think about breathing? Deep breathing can be a great practice for mindfulness exercise and is a much needed activity in our busy daily lives. At least once a day, find a quiet spot, get comfortable and just take some slow deep breaths. Focus only on deep breaths in and slow breaths out. Give your body the extra oxygen it needs for all the functions of your body. Calm your mind, slow down and enjoy a moment to just rejuvenate and regenerate for the rest of the day ahead of you. You deserve it!

   
It’s Garden Time!

We are so happy that the warm weather is upon us and that means garden time at Five County! Residents were out planting their annual garden and planted radishes, lettuce, peas, carrots and their all- time favorite sunflowers. It is always a contest to see who’s sunflower grows the tallest. This is a hobby to teach the residents. It can be relaxing, rewarding and therapeutic to the residents and always has good results. Besides that, it is always nice to “reap what you sow” and eat the end results! We will be sure to post pictures in a few months of those big sunflowers!

Baby Class

We had our semi-annual parenting class with our Lady Warriors group. This class lasts for three weeks and many topics are covered during this training. STD’s and Infant CPR are taught by our nurse Tonya Chandler. Our Staff Judy Gould taught budgeting (you have to pay for those diapers somehow), development of the fetus, development of the first year after birth, fetal alcohol syndrome and effects, child abuse, and many other topics are covered. Then the residents are required to wear the pregnancy suits for 24 hours. After that is done, the real training comes in. Residents are required to take care of a computerized baby 24 hours a day for a week. They must feed, burp, rock, change diapers and be in charge of the babies all on their own. The female residents did a great job and all graduated the class. This is another tradition at our treatment center. We are very proud of our parenting program and feel it is invaluable for each resident to understand what all is involved when you decide to become a parent!

      
Community Service

Springtime means community service time and a lot of focus is on getting that community service done with the residents. There has been a lot of sanding and painting going on and plenty of landscape work has been going on. Gina Jensen has spearheaded all of the community service work this spring. Thank you Gina and the residents. The center is looking great inside and out!

ICADD Training:

Three staff, Drug and Alcohol Specialist Taryn Ivie, and Supervisors Jennifer Bryner and Gina Jensen had a great week at ICADD Drug and Alcohol Conference in Boise, Idaho. There were many great speakers on the latest up to date treatment for substance abuse. Drug and Alcohol treatment is always changing and improving and we want the best substance abuse treatment possible at our facility. These three staff are excited to share what they learned with the team.

            
Graduation Time!

We had two different graduation accomplishments to brag about! The first is POST for our part-time/reserve staff. We would like to congratulate Terry Bair, Kory Orme, Emma Flores, KaytLynn Dummer and Phelan Murdock. They passed the POST exams with flying colors and we are so glad to have them as part of our team.

The second graduation was for one of our male residents from the Eagle’s group and one of our female residents from the Lady Warriors group. Each graduated with their High School Diploma. It was a great celebration with family, staff and peers to congratulate them on such a big achievement. One of the Native American peers played the drum and sang a Native American song for the ceremony which was an added treat. ( The homemade cookies that our kitchen staff prepared were also enjoyed by all). Education is so important for the future of each resident that comes to Five County and we are looking forward to another ceremony at the end of the summer!