My oldest brother Wesley has been an addict for over 10 years, so every now and then I will accompany my mother to a Nar-Anon Family Group. I have been to a handful of these, but I am going to refer to the most recent one I attended. On January 17th of this year, I attended a one hour session with my mother in a classroom at Hope Church. This group is not affiliated with any religion: Hope graciously allows them to hold their group there. In this specific session, we discussed the concept on enabling. In our Groups OCP class, we have also talked about what enabling means; however, in that context ennabling someone meant helping them get to their full potential. In the context of addiction, enablement means that you are encouraging a loved one to participate in a dysfunctional behavior. In this session we learned that in most cases, enablement comes from good intentions, but it something you must will yourself to resist in order to ultimately help the one you love overcome his/her addiction. The leader of this group is a father of an addict who is now sober and he assumes a role of a peer. Since this group is a mature group that (usually) consists of cognitively unimpaired adults, the group leader simply acts as one of the group who casually leads the discussion. He never acts as if he has all the answers and typically allows the other group members to provide answers to questions given by other group members. He encourages dialogue within the group by creating an inviting environment: coffee is provided and everyone is in a circle. The room is rather open so we never feel trapped or claustrophobic. The most calming thing about the environment is the fact that we are amongst those who know the struggle of loving an addict. It is a "safe" zone to let out your frustration or anger and not feel guilty for it. I have never encountered any type of judgment in this setting before. Sometimes, there are individuals who tend to take all the "spotlight" and overshare. The facilitator will remedy this problem by directly asking other people to share their thoughts about the subject. I would definitely consider this experience to be therapeutic. At my angriest points, I feel understood and my tank has been filled with encouragement and empathy.
Specifically, this session in January resembled a Cognitive-Behavioral group. Many people who have addicts in their family will give them money (which they ultimately spend on drugs), allow them to stay in their homes, or just simply take on the negative consequences that the addict has created. We do this because we think we are helping them, but we are not actually helping anything. Part of the problem is that addicts have a "warped" mindset and blame us if we do not "help them out". It is truly a terrible spot to be in. This theory was used in this group session because in order to change the enabling behavior, we must first change our thoughts about what enablement really is and the harm it can cause ourselves and those we love. This is a hard mindset to break and cannot be done overnight. Accepting the fact that we are not the ones who can help the addicts in our lives is the most useful thing I got out of this session. The addict is the only one who can make the first step to recovery.
What I have learned from these experiences is that sometimes I feel like my family was dealt the worst hand with Wesley, but that is not the case. I hear the stories of these other individuals and I see that they struggle just like we do (if not more).
Fortunately, as I have said before, Wesley is now at the Warriors Center which is a rehab for men. He is making great progress there.
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to share on this aspect of my life. I don't often get the chance to.
Thursday, March 8, 2018
Article Reflection: Effectiveness of a Sensory-Enriched Early Intervention Group Program for Children With Developmental Disabilities
Blanche, E., Chang, M., Gutierrez, J., & Gunter, J. (2016). Effectiveness of a sensory-enriched early intervention group program for children with developmental disabilities. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 70(5). doi:10.5014/ajot.2016.018481
The purpose of this article was to observe how effective a group program called the Interdisciplinary Sensory-Enriched Early Intervention (ISEEI) for children who have developmental delays. ISEEI was designed in part by occupational therapists and can have up to 12 children in a group. Ideally, the ratio of adult to child is 1:3. This program involved consultations in the home, excursions to parks or places of recreation, and courses designed to train parents of those with developmental delays. The children in this study attended the group program 2-3 times for week for 3 hours each time. The protocol for this group involved addressing themes such as social interaction, motor development (gross and fine), development of cognition, and communication/language skills. For this study, each child was given individual goals based on assessment, medical history, and concerns of the parent. Progress was recorded every 3-6 months. The clinical bottom line for this study is that results showed that this protocol demonstrated statistically significant improvement in all developmental areas for those with sensory processing disorder(except fine motor skills). Those without sensory-related difficulties showed significant advancements in language/cognition.
The most interesting and useful aspect of this study was that it broadened my knowledge of who the groups process can be useful for. While in this class, I usually associate group interventions with people who have mental health related diagnoses; however, it is true that any population can benefit from group intervention. The children in this study were in between the ages of 18-36 months which means that the role of the facilitator was most definitely directive. This article does not explicitly say which frame of reference they used, but I mostly associate this population with Allens Cognitive Levels because those with cognitive impairments closely resemble the mental capacities of children in most cases. In my Perspectives of Adulthood class, we were first introduced to the concept of Allen's Cognitive Levels. We were taught a way to remember what the characteristics of each level is to think of the age group it resembles. For example, Level 1 resembles the cognitive abilities of someone 0-12 months and level 3 is associated with someone 18 months to 3 years old. That being said, the Developmental theory closely applies because the purpose of the study was to develop age-appropriate skills for each child.
One thing I learned from this article is that groups can also involve the caregivers as well. When we made our group protocols for this class, we always had to keep in mind the client population; however, there are some cases in which we will involve the caregivers into the group process and their needs must be taken into consideration.
I enjoyed this experience because every time I read an article, I get one step closer to being a well-rounded, evidence-based practitioner!
The purpose of this article was to observe how effective a group program called the Interdisciplinary Sensory-Enriched Early Intervention (ISEEI) for children who have developmental delays. ISEEI was designed in part by occupational therapists and can have up to 12 children in a group. Ideally, the ratio of adult to child is 1:3. This program involved consultations in the home, excursions to parks or places of recreation, and courses designed to train parents of those with developmental delays. The children in this study attended the group program 2-3 times for week for 3 hours each time. The protocol for this group involved addressing themes such as social interaction, motor development (gross and fine), development of cognition, and communication/language skills. For this study, each child was given individual goals based on assessment, medical history, and concerns of the parent. Progress was recorded every 3-6 months. The clinical bottom line for this study is that results showed that this protocol demonstrated statistically significant improvement in all developmental areas for those with sensory processing disorder(except fine motor skills). Those without sensory-related difficulties showed significant advancements in language/cognition.
The most interesting and useful aspect of this study was that it broadened my knowledge of who the groups process can be useful for. While in this class, I usually associate group interventions with people who have mental health related diagnoses; however, it is true that any population can benefit from group intervention. The children in this study were in between the ages of 18-36 months which means that the role of the facilitator was most definitely directive. This article does not explicitly say which frame of reference they used, but I mostly associate this population with Allens Cognitive Levels because those with cognitive impairments closely resemble the mental capacities of children in most cases. In my Perspectives of Adulthood class, we were first introduced to the concept of Allen's Cognitive Levels. We were taught a way to remember what the characteristics of each level is to think of the age group it resembles. For example, Level 1 resembles the cognitive abilities of someone 0-12 months and level 3 is associated with someone 18 months to 3 years old. That being said, the Developmental theory closely applies because the purpose of the study was to develop age-appropriate skills for each child.
One thing I learned from this article is that groups can also involve the caregivers as well. When we made our group protocols for this class, we always had to keep in mind the client population; however, there are some cases in which we will involve the caregivers into the group process and their needs must be taken into consideration.
I enjoyed this experience because every time I read an article, I get one step closer to being a well-rounded, evidence-based practitioner!
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