Services

At CMEC we offer an array of services:

Counseling: Individual (children, adolescents and adults), Family, Couples, and Groups
Stepping Stones: Children of Incarcerated Parents
Support/Classes
Parenting Workshops
Mediation
Community Trainings/Specializations
Employer Support to address, diversity, work burnout, and various other work related issues.

Counseling

CMEC’s counseling programs offer those in need the opportunity to seek counseling/therapeutic services with an experienced and licensed therapist. Our counseling aims to initiate therapeutic interventions with clients while following best practices for social work and mental health intervention.

Our therapists have experience and are highly trained in various issues to include but not limited to:

Children of Incarcerated Parents
Attachment
Parenting
Single Parent Family Issues
Teenage Parents
Teenage Sexual Conversations
Divorce and Restructuring of Families
Juvenile Delinquency
Substance Abuse
Marital Issues
Sexual Abuse
Attention Deficit Disorders
Adoption
Codependency
Depression
Emotional Disturbance
Infidelity
Peer Relationships
Sexual Abuse
Substance Abuse
Addiction
Teenage Pregnancy
Alcohol Abuse
Bipolar Disorder
Coping Skills
Domestic Violence
Family Conflict
Obsessive-Compulsive (OCD)
Relationship Issues
Career Counseling
Codependency
Grief and Loss
Oppositional Defiance
Growth and Development
Peer Relationships
Self Esteem
Trauma and PTSD
Academic Underachievement
Anxiety
Behavioral Issues
Coping Skills
Weight Loss
Life Coaching

Marital Issues
Sexual Abuse
Attention Deficit Disorders
Adoption
Codependency
Depression
Emotional Disturbance
Infidelity

Peer Relationships
Sexual Abuse
Substance Abuse
Addiction
Teenage Pregnancy
Alcohol Abuse
Bipolar Disorder
Coping Skills
Domestic Violence
Family Conflict
Obsessive-Compulsive (OCD)
Relationship Issues
Career Counseling
Codependency

Grief and Loss
Oppositional Defiance
Growth and Development
Peer Relationships
Self Esteem
Trauma and PTSD
Academic Underachievement
Anxiety
Behavioral Issues
Coping Skills
Weight Loss
Life Coaching

Support/Classes

Anger Management
Teenage Pregnancy

Stepping Stones: Children of Incarcerated Parents

The SSCOIP program offers individual counseling and support groups to allow children the opportunity in which they can thrive and confront their feelings about various issues relating to their parent being incarcerated. The Communication/Visitation component of Stepping Stones allows children who have an incarcerated parent contact or visitation with that incarcerated parent. It can be a complicated discussion/decision whether to take children to a jail or prison to visit their parent; however, many children had a loving relationship with their parent before their parents’ incarceration. To deny that relationship is devastating to the child. Stepping Stones encourages visitation and communication between our children and their incarcerated parents (when appropriate). Our children rely on us to provide a safe and positive experience of visiting their parents in prison.
Our goal is to make the visitation and communication as comfortable and stress free as possible. In addition this program provides children of incarcerated parents academic support as well as mentors.

THE BILL Of RIGHTS FOR CHILDREN OF INCARCERATED PARENTS

We are supporters of The Bill of Rights for Children of Incarcerated Parents. They were established by the San Francisco Children of Incarcerated Parents Partnership. It was first published in 2003 and it has been widely distributed and used in venues around the country to educate the public, provoke discussion, and train service providers.

The Bill of Rights for Children of Incarcerated Parents:
1. I have the right to be kept safe and informed at the time of my parent’s arrest.
2. I have the right to be heard when decisions are made about me.
3. I have the right to be considered when decisions are made about my parent.
4. I have the right to be well cared for in my parent’s absence.
5. I have the right to speak with, see, and touch my parent.
6. I have the right to support as I struggle with my parent’s incarceration.
7. I have the right not to be judged, blamed or labeled because my parent is incarcerated.
8. I have the right to a lifelong relationship with my parent.

Gone But Not Forgotten

The Gone But Not Forgotten grief support groups is an outreach program for children, teens, and their families who have experienced the tragic death of a parent. The program offers expression of grief through art, farm exposure, water activities, and ground based equestrian activities. Through interaction with their peers and specifically trained bereavement counselors, the child and their family learn that they are not alone in their grief.

Parenting Classes

The Counseling, Mediation, and Educational Center offers those in need of parenting courses an opportunity to improve their relationships with their children by developing and implementing essential parenting skills.

Listed below are the varieties of parenting classes offered by the CMEC:

Redefining the Parental Relationship Series (RPR): An 8-week parenting program designed for parents who have been separated from their child (ren) for various periods of time. This program aims to rebuild attachment between the parent and child. Increasing the capacity of parents to identify and reflect on attachment issues in their relationships with their children and adolescents assists them in reframing conflict and in increasing the effectiveness of parenting.

Parenting (123/ABC): An 8-week parenting program for raising children in today’s uncertain and dangerous world. Children are susceptible to so many forces around them and they can become lost in the chaos without a strong set of parents to guide them. This 8-week session program teaches parents what they need to know about being a superb parent for their children, including instilling confidence in their children, using nonviolent discipline techniques, encouraging mutual respect, and living with an adolescent.

Teenage Parenting (TP): An 8-week parenting program geared towards working with teenagers who are parenting. Its purpose is to help these new parents feel supported and confident in their parenting journey. The 8-week series covers a multitude of topics ranging from the emotions of a teenage mother and father, parenting without a partner, the importance of education, changing diapers and baby care, breastfeeding, how the baby’s brain works, and various other topics. This parenting series has a special guest speaker twice during the series.

16-Week Parenting-Stepping Stones (SSCOIP): A 16-week parenting class available to anyone incarcerated in various Correctional Facilities, which is offered through our Stepping Stones Program. This parenting class addresses various issues of parenting and constantly reinforces attachment and the importance of remaining active in the lives of the children despite their parent’s incarceration. There is also an outreach component of this class that allows the children to attend a support group while their parent is incarcerated and after their parent is released.

Divorce Made Easy (DME): A 4-hour parent education and family stabilization course (required for divorce in the State of Florida, Department of Children and Families (DCF) approved). We offer the required 4-hour parent education and family stabilization course several times per month.

Mediation

The Counseling, Mediation, and Educational Center offers mediations with Florida Supreme Court Certified Family, Dependency, and Circuit Civil Mediators. We recognize family discord creates continuous and ongoing conflict as well as complications with the child and within the family. We aim to explore possible options and solutions that best meet the needs of each family member, especially the children. We offer mediation to assist caregivers, children, and parents and to give them the opportunity to work together as a family to develop a strong support system for the wellbeing of the child. Our goal is to give the family a chance to communicate with each other and to develop a plan that is beneficial for the mental and physical being of the child.

Community/Employer Trainings/Specializations

The Counseling, Mediation, and Educational Center offers various trainings to community agencies, programs, social workers, therapists, and other interested social service personnel. Our trainings are conducted by individuals who have at least 10 to 20 years of experience working directly with clients.

Our trainings include the following:

Working with Incarcerated Parents
Reaching the Teenage Parent
Working with Children of Incarcerated Parents
Anger-management
Self-esteem
Trauma
Diversity with Clients
Diversity with Staff
Sexuality-abstinence
Personal Development
Drug Education
Asset Building
Parental Support
Caregiver Support
Crisis Intervention
Residential Clinical Program Consultation