Success Stories
Wediko School Success
Wediko Summer Program Success
School-Based Services Success
Wediko School Success
Struggling with Asperger’s Syndrome
This 12 year old boy was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome approximately four years ago. Once people get to know him they find him to be engaging, funny, smart and creative. Unfortunately, his first impression is less than impressive. He presents with odd mannerisms, poorly developed play skills and a tendency to become quickly overwhelmed and dysregulated. He demonstrates severe deficits in age-expected problem solving skills that contribute to his longstanding difficulty with self-control in moments of increased stress.
He, like many of our students, has a thwarted sense of competence. He has moved off the developmental trajectory that might otherwise support a productive life. He has given up hope that his life will “work” and he has chosen to withdraw into a world where social relationships are characterized by estrangement, rejection, and disapproval. Due to a long standing pattern of failure, he has begun to deny the importance, the usefulness, and even the ultimate value of competence. Instead he has invested a lot of his psychological energy into opposition and avoidance. He has become highly skilled in the art of disrupting classrooms, peer groups, and family relationships. In addition he has become quite good at resisting adult efforts to redirect him towards a more constructive connection with teachers, friends, and family. With such a pervasive pattern of difficulties, his parents have become increasingly frustrated, hopeless and exhausted. All of the family resources have been dedicated to providing for this child’s needs.
At Wediko, rather than focusing on his opposition, avoidance, and resistance, we have put our resources into helping him reach out to develop more positive and useful relationship with others. It is our job to help locate and capture our student’s “drive to competence” connect with it, and provide a satisfying outlet for it. We focus on strengths and reward effort. Our students are most successful when they can become better connected with loved ones, when they can build friendships and satisfying personal relationships, when they can show concern for others and when they can feel a genuine sense of personal accomplishment. This is certainly true for this youngster; as he has progressed in his connection to others he has also been better able to participate responsibly in the relationships that define his social world. Positive relationships and a sense of personal worth allowed him to replace opposition and disconnection with negotiation, compliance and a sense of belonging.
Challenges of adoption
This 10 year old student was adopted from a foreign counry at 3 years old. He came to his new family with an unclear history, but certainly one of neglect. Within a short period of time it became clear to his adoptive parents that their son’s problems went well beyond adjusting to a new environment. He was a challenge to parent and he displayed many oppositional and disruptive behaviors within the home. He would often become incredibly violent and aggressive towards his family members. His parents found it was difficult to soothe him and that the parenting techniques that they had used successfully with their other children were not working with this child. Treatment efforts have included outpatient therapy, special education services, psychiatric treatment and medication, and finally hospitalization. Despite the loving and caring interventions of this family, their child continued to display mood dysregulation, explosive episodes at school and home, significant aggression towards his parents and peers, and school failure.
Although their son presents with significant levels of disruption to the family, they love him deeply and remain committed to his future. When demands are low and the environment is calm, this boy is sweet, loving and fun to be around. He is a gifted artist, athletic and loving towards the family dogs.
At Wediko, our assessment was that the boy’s emotional instability is the expression of his fluctuating states of arousal resulting from his early experiences of trauma. His mood dysregulation includes anxiety, self loathing, and rumination in negative past experiences and thoughts. Early experiences have resulted in an anxious/ambivalent attachment style that is manifested in all of his relationships. Due to his inability to trust and connect with others, he was constantly in a state of exaggerated autonomy expressed in fight or flight responses.
Over the course of treatment at Wediko, which included individual, family and group therapy as well as a specialized individual academic program, slowly and gradually, this student has made significant gains. During his first few months at Wediko, he required a high level of adult attention and a very individualized treatment program. When expected to conform to group expectations and when confronted with demands for higher levels of functioning, he would quickly become defiant, disorganized and abusive. Safety was the top priority and within a very short period of time he was working almost exclusively one-on-one with staff. This intensity protected him from himself, as well as others, and it allowed him to develop relationships with several key adults. From these relationships, he began to develop healthy social skills: his hygiene improved significantly, he began to communicate using full sentences and he eventually began to tolerate and express feelings and emotions. In addition, he participated in group based experiential activities and he began to attend school and complete academic tasks that he had earlier refused to participate in. His overall level of aggression decreased and he began going home on a regular basis. As is common with children with an attachment disorder, he remains ambivalent regarding his participation in the family system, however, he has worked towards spending increasing amounts of time with his family and at the present time he spends each weekend and all school vacations at home. Through family therapy, his parents have learned about Reactive Attachment Disorder and worked hard at creating structures that support his need for personal space while also holding him accountable to appropriate basic household expectations. School, family relationships, and peer connections are all improving and moving towards a more age appropriate realm.
Wediko Summer Program Success
A 10 year-old boy with low self-esteem
Bobby came to Wediko’s Summer Program on July 5th. He was a friendly 10 year-old boy from Boston who was struggling with significant communication and learning difficulties, and a weakness in fine motor skills that made schoolwork and writing a particularly frustrating challenge. Bobby was also overweight and did not like the way he looked or the messages that he got from people about his size. The combination of these things led to Bobby feeling badly about himself and doubting his abilities. He was angry about these struggles and did not see a way to change them for the better.
How Wediko helped Bobby: In his first few weeks at the Wediko Summer Program, Bobby demonstrated glimpses of a wonderful sense of humor and sensitivity toward others. But more often, his appearance was sullen. He overslept on a daily basis, and he often missed parts of school and activities because he was in such a negative space. Further, Bobby's behavior was scary to other people when he got angry, which happened often. Three or four times a day, he was physically aggressive toward other people, leading to isolation from peers, who were afraid he would hurt them in a rage over something trivial like not being able to have candy at bedtime or not being first in line.
During the many opportunities that staff had to talk with Bobby about these problematic behaviors, Bobby always expressed how sorry he was that he had acted so dangerously. Slowly, he shared his negative feelings about his appearance, his academic progress, and his inability to express himself when he got mad. He described feeling like an “angry Bobby” just took over his body and he was no longer in control of his actions. He didn’t know when it would happen or what he would do when “angry Bobby” came.
As Bobby described how he felt, his staff were able to help him see ways to predict his angry feelings and adjust his coping style to be less aggressive and more productive. He started to use language to make his feelings known instead of his fists or rocks. Staff were able to provide motivation for Bobby to get up on time in the morning by offering him the chance to help in the dining hall at breakfast. Bobby loved to feel helpful and took these opportunities seriously. His staff also identified how his eating patterns contributed to his feeling unhealthy, and he was able to identify better patterns of eating and limit unhealthy snacks. Bobby was also seen by Wediko’s prescribing physician, who consulted with Bobby’s father and clinical team, before adjusting his medications.
By his fourth week at Wediko, Bobby spent every morning in school, participating in class. His smile was becoming infectious around the setting. In activities, he was making many friends. In group therapy he began speaking up, giving feedback to others and taking responsibility for his own choices. At meals he was more health conscious as well. Bobby was the talk of the group; both children and staff were impressed by his honesty, his courage, and his ability to change. Bobby exceeded everyone’s expectations, including his own: it was hard to believe that the Bobby who was getting ready to go home in August was the same boy who had arrived in July.
A week after he arrived home, in a family therapy session with Bobby and his parents, they sat around a table smiling and laughing. Bobby blushed and grinned from ear to ear as his dad raved about how healthy his son looked and how amazing it was that Bobby had been the first person up in the morning every day since his return. Before his summer at Wediko, his dad shared, the only days of the year that Bobby had gotten out of bed without a struggle were his birthday and Christmas. And he added, Bobby was able to talk about his feelings, accept limits set by adults, eat healthier snacks, and play with friends. Bobby was ready for a successful year with a positive outlook and a well-earned sense of self esteem.
A 16 year-old young woman, turns it around
Dawn is 16-years-old and has spent four summers at Wediko. The story of her early life is sad and traumatic, but Dawn is full of promise. Perhaps the biggest obstacle for Dawn is learning how to trust people. Because she was abused and abandoned by the adults who should have cared for her, Dawn has a hard time allowing trusting adults to support her. When she first arrived at Wediko, evidence of her difficult past clouded most interactions she had. She lashed out at adults and children and stomped away from resolving a conflict. Even her body reflected her deep distress.
How Wediko helped Dawn: Four years later, Dawn is known as a leader on the Wediko setting. She speaks eloquently about what it means to be a good friend and how to work through difficult times. Dawn supports other teenagers and children in their grief. Staff members know that they can turn to her to help others and to offer the compassionate perspective of a peer. She is vivacious and as for her future, she is shooting for the starts.
This summer, Dawn was host of the all girls poetry night and was part of the college prep class in Think City. Even with her progress, Dawn knows that she still has work to do. Her relationships continue to be complicated, particularly with the people she cares most about, including her foster mother. In line with her other bold steps toward growth and self-improvement, Dawn made a point of letting staff know that she felt a need to work with her foster home to improve communication and trust within her home. Adults and children are now drawn to Dawn, and she has demonstrated the potential to be a real success in school and the community as she becomes a young adult.
School-Based Services Success
A motivated family
Jeannette was the only child of Bessie, a single mother who was determined to make life better for herself and her daughter. Bessie had a part-time job in a hospital and was taking one college-level course at a time, hoping for a career in the helping profession.
Jeannette was placed in a special education class when she entered school at the age of four. She was impulsive, she disrupted her class with screaming and loud demands for attention, and she was dangerous to herself and others. School-based therapy with Wediko was recommended, and Jeannette enjoyed the individual attention during the therapy time. She made some progress with controlling her demands for attention and using words to ask for help.
The teacher had several suggestions for Bessie: get Jeannette a medication evaluation, participate in family therapy, and join a Wediko-run parent support group. Bessie was motivated, and she followed through on the suggestions. Jeannette was prescribed medication for her attention-deficit disorder, and, as a result of her calmer interactions with people, she began to experience social and academic success in school. Bessie attended the parent support group and found relief and help from the other parents who were "in the same boat." When the group ended, she agreed to Wediko family therapy, and she and Jeannette worked to establish routines at home that worked better for them.
Eventually Bessie gained confidence in her ability to create a safe and loving experience for herself and her daughter. Several years, later, she proudly forwarded her senior college thesis to her Wediko "team."