By Maya Rosales | Youth Services Coordinator
The time has come…our teen group is expanding!
April is sexual assault awareness month as well as Child Abuse Prevention Month. There is an estimated 42 million survivors of child sexual abuse in the United States...and this is just of what is reported. These survivors deserve a safe space to share their stories. They deserve a place where they feel welcomed and supported. Over the last year, we have gotten to the point where we must expand our support group. Since April 1st, 2022- we have had 23 adolescent survivors come into the support group. The attendance has almost doubled in the past few years of facilitating this support group. We strive to make spaces for every survivor that walks through our doors so that means creating support groups when we see a need! Since December 2022, our last report, we have served 80 children who have been sexually abused.
Project Anchor will now become our “beginner” support group for ages 12-18. This group will focus on the basic foundations of recovery. We will be going over different forms of abuse, coping skills, and identifying trauma responses. Project Anchor is a prerequisite to the other group named “Project Voyage”- this group will be focused on having harder conversations about sexual trauma. This group will be doing projects that heavily focus on talking about their trauma. All clients will go through a screening tool to see if they are “ready” to be placed into this group. We felt that this would be a more trauma-informed way of expanding the support groups without having to split up teens who have been with each other for several months/years.
There is something truly special about our support group clients. I have been so privileged to see the exponential amount of growth in this support group. The clients comfort each other when big feelings start to arise and they know that they have each other’s backs. The impact that these kids have had on one another is amazing. We are excited to grow this support group and serve many more adolescent clients in the near future. We are extremely grateful for any donations that we receive for this project. Below are some examples of art that we have done over the last few months with supplies that we have been able to get because of our amazing donors.
As it starts to get warmer, we would love to get some field trips on the calendar! We are looking at taking clients to a “rage room” where they are able to get their anger out by smashing TVs, plates, and other items. We are also looking to go horseback riding again. We thank you all for your constant support, without you, we would not be able to do these amazing things!
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By Maya Rosales | Youth Services Coordinator
By Maya Rosales | Assistant Coordinator
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