Lighthouse New Beginnings

Serena Mathews, Summer 2014

Lighthouse was founded in 1969 by a group of women from Baptist Women's Fellowship. It began as an all-girls group home and morphed into the larger, more encompassing Light House Youth Services, which is now one of the nation's leading child service providers. New Beginnings is a continuation of the original plan and acts as a therapeutic community-based residential girls group home. Most of the girls involved are often victims (some of them even perpetrators) of sexual abuse; they also often suffer from emotional or behavioral disorders. Often, these girls have had previous placements that have not worked out for them. They have histories of running away, drug abuse, or self-harm, which is what often does not allow them to remain in a traditional foster care home. New Beginnings seeks to develop age appropriate life skills in the girls within the program and attempts to give the girls a way to address their issues regarding the emotional and behavioral issues. This is done by twice a week mandatory group therapy sessions, individual therapy, once a month visits to the Lighthouse physiatrist and daily interactions with staff trained to help girls. The program also focuses on family involvement so that the girls can work toward reunification if that is the next step or to maintain positive interactions with family. The goal is to allow the girls to be equipped with the necessary tools to allow them to successfully adjust to their next transition, whether it be reunification with a family member or independent living.

One of the most unique parts of New Beginnings is its community based living. This is an unlocked facility that resides rather unobtrusively in a larger neighborhood. The girls often participate in community activities, are given the chance to spend time in the community when they earn 'sign outs', and many of the girls look for jobs within the community. New Beginnings gives the girls the chance to lead relatively normal teenage lives. They have school, can visit friends, have chores, get allowances and even get grounded when they misbehave.

It was made clear to me from the beginnings that this was going to be a difficult summer filled with learning and growth on my part, for the girls, and even the staff. After my first week there, my site supervisor stopped me on my way out asking if I was still planning on returning next week. I was surprised she even asked, but she said there are often workers and volunteers that find the stressful environment of group home too much to handle. Of course, she had a point. Within the first week I was there one of the girls had gone missing for a few days, and had returned claiming she had been sexually assaulted. A few of the girls had gotten into yelling matches in the house with one another and broken some of the property at New Beginnings. I had two conversations with two separate girls about their attitude towards me and why I would appreciate having honest and straightforward conversations rather than dealing with muttered swearing and rude sayings directed towards me. It was an eventful week to be sure, and a rather typical week at the group home if I'm honest. There is always something happening, but within the chaos there is a chance to develop meaningful and impactful relationships with the girls.

This is where true change is able to occur. When looking at Maslow's hierarchy of needs all of the girls' most basic needs are met, they have food, water, shelter, warmth and clothing. When they first arrive it is imperative with are able to prove to them that this home with be a safe environment for them and the people working at new beginnings are first and foremost concerned with the well-being of the girls. They have their health and physiatrist needs met within the first week of arrival. What they need however is to help them find their sense of belonging, of friendship and family. The relationships these girls have with staff and with one another give many of these girls a sense of security. It also directly influences their actions, as in a few cases I have seen a few girls refuse to smoke or avoid getting into bed behavior because they didn't want to disappoint the staff. It also gives them someone to talk to and trust, when they often have a difficult time trusting the healthcare professionals and others that they work with. It was an eye opening experience, to realize that for these girls, for whom trust was a rare commodity, very little could be spared for these people they saw once a month at most. That trust requires serious time and effort and isn't easily found.

As such, the major responsibility of the summer internship was to develop a relationship with the girls. As an intern I accompanied them to their various doctor and dental appointments and dependency and delinquency hearings. New Beginnings works specifically to serve girls with psychiatric issues and as such many of the girls require medication at all hours of the day. Ensuring that these girls are compliant with their medications is a huge part of the therapeutic process, and therefore was one of my responsibilities. The use of these medications also requires monitoring, so the staff gets together once a week to discuss the various issues the girls are facing and what can be improved to help the girls. If there are various issues with the girls it is also discussed during these teams meetings. I was able to able to be a part of these meetings and contribute to the discussions. The girls also have group therapy session two times a week and I was a part of those therapy sessions as well. I was able to develop this relationship with the girls by putting in the work. I was there for them after their fights, or when they hated going to the physiatrist appointments. I would make them articulate why they didn't want to do something or why they wanted to run away.

As med students we often see or hear about populations and people who have different backgrounds from us. Yet even with that it's easy to become a little self-absorbed, and caught up in how hard our lives are and how difficult the work we do is. Yet this summer was filled with moments where I wasn't even given the chance to be selfish. Moments that necessitated understanding beyond what I thought I was capable of. It forced more out of me than expected and I think I able to help these girls as well. I know I formed those relationships because the girls sat on my car the last day of work, refusing to let me leave. Of course everything was better when I promised this wasn't the end, it was just the beginning. I've already planned on returning throughout the year to help tutor the girls and to continue my relationship with them.