Katie’s Way of Manhattan will soon be providing a new service to area parents.
Katie’s Way director and psychologist Matthew Wassom says the Community Care program will train parents in anticipating and dealing with certain behavior in children.
“This program is designed for parents and families that have young children ages two to eight,” Wassom said. “It’s really designed for any parents out there that want guidance on helping their child with healthy development and parents with current concerns about either their children’s disruptive behaviors or their social-emotional functioning.”
Katie’s Way will be putting on two workshops for this program over the next few weeks with each covering a different topic.
“That way I can kind of cover some of the basics of child development in that first workshop series,” Wassom said. “And then the second one goes into more specific problem solving of behavioral challenges.”
Each workshop will be in the Anthony Middle School cafeteria. The first will be on Oct. 21st from 6 to 8 p.m. and the second will be on Oct. 28th from 6 to 8 p.m..
The Community Care Program is right in line with the mission of Katie’s Way, which has been to provide mental healthcare to children and young adults since it opened in 2015.
Another way they pursue this goal is through integrating different methods of treatment.
“One of the mission’s of opening Katie’s Way was to have integrated care, so medical and psychotherapy or therapy care for behavioral and mental health, which we know research wise is often indicated and often the most successful to have good treatment outcomes,” Wassom said.
Katie’s way is able to provide some of these services for those who are in a situation that may not allow them to be able to pay for healthcare through through fundraising efforts, such as Hair4Hope.
“We kind of see day in and day out how that benefits patients that really need care,” Wassom said. “Multiple patients of mine that either have lost insurance or don’t have adequate healthcare insurance but definitely need the care that we provide. It benefits them so much to have charitable giving for us to be able to benefit patients directly.”
The Hair4Hope event took place last month and started fundraising efforts for Katie’s Way on a high note.
“We raised over $17,000 and that was our first event,” Deanna Nitschke, the resource development coordinator for Katie’s way, said.
Katie’s Way also has a number of other fundraising events in the near future.
On Dec. 14th, they will host a holiday open house were people will be able to see their facility, enjoy holiday decorations and make donations.
They will also have the Grow Green program in conjunction with the Greater Manhattan Community Foundation. This will take place on April 22nd, or Earth Day, and will raise money that will go toward the Katie’s Way endowment fund. The GMCF will provide a 50-percent match for each dollar raised.
To donate to Katie’s Way or to find out more about services they provide, visit katieswaymanhattan.com.
