Family Child Care Center of Lakewood

As parents we want the very best for our children. We hope that they have every opportunity to reach their full potential, and we work to provide the best chance for them to succeed at school and in life. So, when employment and other life situations require the need for child care, Lakewood offers the Family Life Child Care Center of Lakewood to parents. We help your children get a great start in life by providing exceptional child care and exceeding industry standards in curriculum development. Our program has continually been recognized as a first-rate program and our center is rated higher than 95% of all the child care providers in the State of Ohio with regard to quality of care.

 

We offer year round care for infants, toddlers and preschool-aged children. Our enthusiastic and experienced staff ensure competent and loving care and provide a nurturing environment. Each age group receives the individualized attention they need to develop and advance educationally and socially. By the time your child is ready for kindergarten, he/she is well prepared to enter school healthy and ready to learn!

 

Serving Emerson and Harrison Elementary Schools, our before-and-after school care for kindergarten-5th grade provides your child with a variety of structured and free choice activities. Whether your child needs to burn up some energy from a day of sitting in school or requires homework assistance, our program provides supervised enrichment and recreation along with a nutritious afternoon snack.

 

It’s summertime and “mom, I’m bored” is getting old quickly! Our school age summer camp has been designed to prevent summer boredom with themes such as Gross and Gooey Science, Game Show Week, Kid’s Kitchen, and Sports Channel. We provide a fun, learning environment, planned activities, weekly field trips, meals and snacks, trips to the pool, park and library, a summer reading program and more! This year, parents can choose from 3, 4 and 5 day options! Our 2011 Camp runs from June 13 – August 19, Monday – Friday from 6:30am – 6pm.

 

We invite parents in the Lakewood community to come check us out! Our commitment to excellent child care along with our convenient location, make the Family Life Child Care Center of Lakewood a great place for your children to learn, share and grow. For more information about our center or to enroll your child today, call 440.260.6001 or visit www.familylifecenters.org.

June Spotlight: Mobile Crisis/Mental Health Hotline

MHS, Inc. operates the 24 hr/ 7 day per week Mobile Crisis/Mental Health Hotline for adults and children in Cuyahoga County.  This hotline is a ‘safety net’ for those in our community who are experiencing a psychiatric crisis.

Late one evening the Mobile Crisis Team received a call from a concerned father, troubled by the behaviors that his 17-year-old daughter, “Mary” was exhibiting.  We spoke with the father at length, gathering information about Mary.  She was the child of a schizophrenic mother and two alcoholic parents.   At age nine, Mary’s mother left her father and took Mary to live with her, moving from one motel or domestic violence center to another.  This pattern continued until Mary was 15.   At age 10 Mary’s mother sought psychiatric help for her daughter, as Mary was isolating herself from others, often-times non-communicative and spent increasing amounts of time sleeping.   At age 15 her mother left her in foster care.  Her father secured custody of her one year later.

Mary continued to appear to be deeply troubled.  When she stopped taking the antidepressant medication, her father contacted the Mobile Crisis Team for help.  He reported feeling overwhelmed by his daughter’s troubles and unable to help her.  She displayed drastic mood swings and was disrespectful toward authority figures.  She reported thoughts of harming her peers and flashbacks to incidents of physical abuse at the hands of her mother.  She treated small animals such as bugs, frogs, and snakes cruelly, crushing or drowning them or piercing them with pins.  She had no friends and struggled with issues of sexual identity and feelings of abandonment.  When upset, she would pull her hair, or pick at her face, or scream uncontrollably.  She reported suicidal thoughts, imagining herself jumping from her twelfth-floor balcony.

The following day Mobile Crisis staff met with Mary and her father in their home.  Upon completing the assessment process, we discussed the options for keeping Mary safe.  The more restrictive option, hospitalization, did not appeal to Mary and she assured us that she would not harm herself at home.  Upon further discussion both Mary and her father felt that she would be safe at home and agreed that she would come to MHS the following day to see our agency psychiatrist.

Mary and her father kept her scheduled appointment.  The psychiatric evaluation revealed that Mary was struggling not only with Major Depressive Disorder but also with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.  Her father arranged for her to begin counseling and she was prescribed antidepressant medication.

Mary’s difficulties were serious and long-standing.  Her improvement would not be immediate.  Several weeks following her meeting with the psychiatrist, Mary had an argument with a friend and became upset, again screaming and pulling her hair.  The Mobile Crisis Team responded, outreaching again to her in her home.  We were able to assist Mary de-escalating and regulating her emotions. We continued our attempts to link Mary with long-term, community-based mental health treatment, talking with her regularly to provide encouragement and support and monitor her progress.

Despite the long-term disruption that Mary had experienced in her life, she began to feel better.  She reported to us that she was beginning to feel more positive about her future.  She talked with us about the counselor she had begun to work with and, eventually, the psychiatrist who was providing her with long-term treatment in her community.  Her relationship with her father had improved and they were working together toward the goals she had created for herself.  She thanked us for our support.