Family Hope House is the best place on earth for adoptive, guardianship, and foster care families.
A goofy, fun, and competent place for families to heal, thrive, and enjoy themselves once again—a lively place with plenty of hearts and plenty of hope.
Being Family Hope House
Family Hope House exists to be the solution for the lack of appropriate mental health resources and support for children in adoptive, guardianship, and foster care families. The guardians in these families are devoted to caring for their children, who otherwise would be in shelters or institutional care. Still, these caregivers are often at a loss for how to help their children or are afraid to continue raising their children without support. Traditional therapy methods are ineffective with these children, but we remain hopeful because a solution exists, and we were determined to share it with every family in need of it.
Play therapy is the secret sauce for breakthrough, and it has an incredible impact on this special group. A home full of passionate counselors and therapists excited to take part in the life-changing journey of these families, Family Hope House is dedicated to strengthening and developing healthy families, regardless of makeup, through a specific focus on forming healthy attachments, resolving trauma, and enhancing parent-child relationships.
Family Hope House strives to lead the mental health community in its approach to meeting the needs of adoptive, guardianship, and foster care families.
Attachment
is the building block of future relationships, identity, self-esteem, and it is the primary buffer to trauma and so much more. The deep and enduring bond that connects a caregiver and child, providing the child's safety and security in the world, is also the foundation of healthy brain growth.
The mind of a child lacking healthy attachment has altered ways of seeing his or her environment and strains to find safety and feel safe, making it impossible to attend to everyday developmental tasks. The very wiring of their brain creates challenges to find delight in shared experiences or delight in others, which is the foundation of human life. Consequently, the mind will struggle psychologically by lacking connection or empathy for others, and the body will struggle physiologically with typical development when lacking another safe person to mimic and learn from.
Attachment is about belonging and being known. Learning you are valuable to someone, which in turn gives you the space to find your place in the bigger picture. The importance of healthy attachment in these children is crucial for the betterment of their present and future.
Family Hope House creates environments, both in-office and co-constructing with families in their homes, where children of adoptive, guardianship, and foster care families can be seen, feel understood, and experience support. Our hope is that these children feel safe deep within themselves so they might, in turn, better help those in their homes in this same way.
— Leslie Keenan
Contact
Feel free to contact us with any questions.
Phone
(918) 488-8002