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This was the last week for Klingberg Family Center’s President of eighteen years, Rosemarie Burton. Rosemarie has retired to spend more time with her twin granddaughters, as well as to develop her executive consultation business, By Your Side Consulting (www.byyoursidenc.com). Rosemarie has been an exemplary president for Klingberg. When she started eighteen years ago, Klingberg had 95 staff, two programs and one location. As she leaves now, we have over 400 staff, around 15 programs and seven locations. In addition, the agency has grown in skill, sophistication and expertise. Rosemarie has set the tone for the agency by her unswerving commitment to the children and their families. Rosemarie has taken each of the children in our programs to lunch on their birthdays and other special occasions. She enjoys the children and is deeply committed to their quality of life. Therefore in addition to focusing on securing the latest Federal earmark for the agency, Rosemarie arranges for the kids ...

I have just finished a presentation at the New England Regional Conference of the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs (NATSAP). I think it went well, I received a lot of positive feedback. The members were very welcoming and kind. I had an interesting discussion with a gentleman from Utah about the application of trauma informed care principles in Wilderness Programs. His program serves youth who have gotten in trouble, often with drugs but also many other things, and who are not adjudicated but would become so if no action was taken. These are self pay by parents. The kids and staff go on month long hiking and camping expeditions. Therapists come out to meet with the youth weekly. Some of the principles I teach match very well with their philosophy. Certainly, the whole experience is about teaching skills. The concept of building self worth is also central. The experience of needing to depend on others and work as a team develops a new template for relationships, ...

It may be a call from our licensing agency, concerned about the number of incident reports. It may be reviewing our quality improvement numbers. It might come from staff complaints, or from all the meetings and discussions and panic among the team. But somehow we become aware that one of our programs, cottages or units is not doing well. Chaos has struck. There are an unusually high number of incidents such as restraints, runaways, hospitalizations, staff and child injuries, police calls, negative discharges or other signs of dysregulation. What should we do? Where should we start in our attempts to improve the treatment environment? Usually these times are accompanied by a cry for increasing the severity of consequences. As staff feel more frightened and out of control, they reach for some sense of power. They turn towards more punitive responses as a way to feel in control and powerful. Similarly, the children are feeling frightened and out of control. They turn to violence, aggressi...

Book Review: Working with Children to Heal Interpersonal Trauma- The Power of Play Edited by Eliana Gil Foreword by Lenore C. Terr Guilford Press, August 2010 ISBN 978-1-60623-892-9 Eliana Gil is a well known specialist in helping children who have been abused. The Healing Power of Play: Working with Abused Children (Guilford, 1991) and Treating Abused Adolescents (Guilford, 1996) are two of her previous books which I have enjoyed. Her most recent book, of which she is the editor, is Working with Children to Heal Interpersonal Trauma- The Power of Play (Guilford Press, August 2010). In this book, Gil speaks out for the power of undirected play therapy, particularly sand tray therapy, to provide a vehicle with which children can heal themselves. The book comes at a time when more directive and prescriptive therapies are in favor, and when play therapy has been maligned as not sufficiently powerful for children with attachment difficulties. In addition, in this era of short term therapy,...