Health Guide 2017

Youth Dynamics in Havre has experienced such an influx in demand for its services that they recently had to enlarge their staff.

“It just seems like these past couple of weeks, it has been busier and busier,” said Briayan Flores, area manager of the Havre office.

The Havre office, on the upper floor of the Atrium Mall, has in recent months gone from having an in office staff that fluctuated between one and four and sharing an area manager with their Shelby office, to now having five employees including their own area manager and an onsite therapist. A case manager and two care providers round out the staff.

Four family support assistants, or FSAs, are also employed by the office, and spend the bulk of their time working with clients outside the office.

Grants and donations and some money from Medicaid provide

“We support them in the home, at school and in the community wherever they may need that support,’ Jordan O’Meara, a case manager at the Havre office said.

The office serves children ages 2 to 18. Its services communities as far east as the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, west as Chester and south as Big Sandy.

As a care manager, O’Meara provides children and families with extra circular activities, access to school supplies, clothing and sometimes food. She schedules doctors appointments and teaches the children and guardians coping skills and life skills.

“I’m just a stable person they can trust and come to for anything,” she said.

O’Meara said part of her job is giving them one-on-one attention they might not receive at home.

Youth Dynamics serves children between ages 2 and 18. Some have conditions such as autism, depression and anxiety. Others have behavioral issues, post traumatic stress disorder or substance abuse. And other clients are dealing with the lingering effects of abuse, neglect or readjusting to life in a foster home.

Having a condition or grappling with a traumatic event, isn’t necessary to be a client. Sometimes, Flores said, families come to Youth Dynamics are just looking for a little assistance.

“Sometimes they are just looking for a way to get organized in their home life,” Flores said. “Sometimes they are just looking for some extra people in their lives to keep things going.”

Families, he said, might sometimes need a mentor for their children.

Services Youth Dynamics provides, he said, include therapy, classes and support for the children and their families, foster and respire, parent education and support, educating parents about the mental health system, therapeutic group homes, substance abuse treatment, youth mentors and independent living skills and treatment for overly sexualized youth or youth with substance abuse issues.

Youth Dynamics operates ten specialized therapeutic homes where children can stay throughout the state, said Janice Griebel, a case manager with the Havre office. For example, a home in Helena serves children ages 6 to 13 while others serve children ages 14 to 18.

Some homes are only for males, others only for females and some are for both genders. Youth Dynamics has therapeutic homes tailored to children with certain needs.

Griebel said some therapeutic homes are tailored to children with a specific disorder. One home in Billings., she said, is meant for children with substance abuse problems. Another, in Boulder, is designated for highly sexualized youth.

One therapeutic home practices equine therapy, where children ride and care for horses.

Andreya Taylor, therapist at the Havre office, said equine therapy can help children with a myriad of different conditions such as depression, anxiety, anger.

Independent living skills is another option Youth Dynamics offers its clientele.

Either in a residential home or through a mentor, children ages 14 to 17 can learn about simple tasks and responsibilities that will help them make the leap into adulthood such as laundry, money management and other chores.

Griebel said independent living skills are a way to teach teenagers “kind of be an adult.”

Foster parents and parents of children in Youth Dynamics also receive 48 hours of respite care a year.

Respire care, Griebel said, provides parents and foster parents with a break either to do chores or just have “some me time.” Youth Dynamics can arrange for children to stay with another licensed foster home during that time.

Youth Dynamics will soon offer common-sense parenting classes to the public. A handout provided by Youth Dynamics says common sense parenting is a “high qualify evidence based parenting class that helps parents have consistent, accountable, interactions with their children.”

Basic and easy- to-use parenting techniques are taught, the handout says. People who take part in the program, the handout says, report better family management practices, less substance use and a significant decrease in the risk of child abuse taking place.

Flores said the classes will be offered online or at the Youth Dynamics office. Participants can opt to either take one eight-hour class or two four-hour classes over two days.

The classes are free of charge, Flores said, and will be taught by someone who has been working with Youth Dynamics for 14 years.

No date has yet been set for the classes.

Youth Dynamics is also looking to increase its partnerships with primary care providers to make sure children are receiving medical care.

“Some of our kids are on medication too, so that just helps us coordinate between the therapy and other care aspects of it with … the medical side of it,” Taylor said.

In addition to the parents of children, Youth Dynamics also works with area school districts. Family support assistants sometimes go to meet with the children, speak with their teachers or have lunch with the child, sharing a meal with someone and interacting with their FSA or other Youth Dynamics personnel.

“They love it,” Griebel said.

Youth Dynamics gets the bulk of its funding from a mix of grants, donations and money from Medicaid.

Tammy Jungers, a care manager, said Medicaid covers all of the services Youth Dynamics provides as does private insurance. It uses a sliding fee scale based on income.

As an office in a frontier area, the Havre office has to cope with obstacles that it’s counter parts in cities and more populated areas of Montana do not have, such as the distance clients have to travel for the services Youth Dynamics matches them clients up with.

In places like Bozeman, Griebel said, someone can maybe walk to a hospital or to see a specialist. Given the distance from Havre to larger cities, a lot more travel is involved.

Youth Dynamics also helps to resolve the issue by helping clients find transportation.

Finding enough people to fill openings can also be a challenge.

“You can’t compete the resources here to like Billings or anything like that.” Flores said.

He added that finding enough people to serve as FSAs can also be difficult.

Though their office is now fully staffed, Flores said they are in “dire need” of more FSAs.

Candidates interested in a working as an FSA need to be 18 years older, have an insured vehicle and undergo a background check.

The Havre office also does the best it can to make itself known in the community.

Griebel said Youth Dynamics will take part in medical health fair at Sweet Medical Center at the end of October. The office will host a Halloween party Oct 31 at 3 p.m . Griebel said it will give people a chance to ask about the services the office provides.

Staff and people will be encouraged to dress up and is free of charge.

People interested in the services Youth Dynamics can find out more can call the Havre office at 265-3226 or visit the Youth Dynamics website http://www. youthdynamics.org.