Short-Term Residential Treatment focuses on assessment, stabilization and transition planning for boys 5-16 with serious emotional and behavioral challenges. The program includes individual, group and family therapy, full-day education services, recreational and cultural programming, and health services. Boys usually are referred through state or county human services agencies and the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare.
Our comfortable residential units provide a safe and soothing environment where children develop the skills they need to help them succeed. Treatment plans are individualized and families are very much involved. Our services are specifically designed to thoroughly assess and lessen the impact trauma has on behavior. We develop formal trauma-outcome measurements and provide sensory-based treatments tailored to each child’s needs.
Program highlights include:
- Role modeling, counseling and 24-hour supervision by trained care counselors
- Education in St. Aemilian-Lakeside’s Transitions Therapeutic School
- Individual and family therapy
- Therapy groups that include anger management, social skills and decision making
- Resident involvement in developing individualized plans for ongoing services and support, in order to facilitate a successful return to the community
- Rcreational activities developed by a therapeutic team
- A variety of lower-brain interventions to address trauma the boys may have experienced, including art therapy, yoga, martial arts classes stressing self-control and respect, animal-assisted therapy, and OT groups at which boys practice rhythmic and repetitive activities geared at soothing and calming the brain and promoting self-control
Timelines for services are detailed and specific.
Respite care
Our living units are available for short-term respite care, which provides temporary placement (up to nine days per episode) for boys aged 6-15 who are experiencing difficulties at home or in other placements. Respite provides a break for the child’s care provider while making sure the child is safe and his needs are being met.
For more information on Short-Term Residential Treatment, respite care, or to refer someone for services, contact:
Mike O’Leary, Division director of Residential Treatment
414-465-1345
Fax: 414-463-2770
moleary@st-al.org
