• STAR (Strategic Treatment and Restructuring) is a twenty-week group treatment program for individual parents or parenting couples 18 years or older who are involved with DSS or the court system due to child maltreatment issues.
• The program takes a holistic approach to developing safe environments for children.
• Throughout the program, members will have the opportunity to both to learn parenting skills and therapeutically process cognitive and emotional issues. Group leaders will move flexibly back and forth between “old” issues and “new” issues, using “teachable moments” as they present themselves.
• Topics typically covered during the course of the group include:
• defining and clarifying the purpose and goals
• understanding the effects of abuse and neglect on children
• looking at patterns that led to their current situation
• developing empathy
• anger management
• child development
• child behavior management
• healthy relationships
• domestic violence
• After a group member has attended twenty sessions, group facilitators will provide recommendations as to whether further services may be beneficial. The STAR program adheres to a strict attendance policy that allows no more than five absences over a twenty-five week period, and drops group members if they miss three consecutive sessions.

For more information about this group, call 387-6161 or 889-6161 and ask for Intake Services.