Resilient Teens Project

Executive Summary

At Family Ark, we know that very often, behind a child or teen in crisis is a story of trauma, grief, and pain. Some young people internalize their struggles – isolating themselves, slipping into depression, or facing the very real risk of suicide. Others externalize their pain – turning to substance use, aggression, and risky behaviors, often resulting in juvenile justice system involvement. Both patterns are cries for help, and both can alter the trajectory of a young person’s life if not properly addressed.

And beyond these individual struggles, we must acknowledge a reality shared by every child: the COVID-19 pandemic was a collective trauma for an entire generation of youth. While the direct health threat may be behind us, the reverberations are not. We continue to see the fallout in worsening mental health, heightened substance use, and increased family instability. COVID-19 magnified existing trauma and pushed fragile coping systems past their breaking point.

But what if we could interrupt those cycles? What if, instead of punishment or disconnection, young people were met with support and proven treatment methods that help them build resilience, regulate emotions, and find hope again? What if we could also wrap around their whole family, giving parents and siblings the support they need to heal too? What if we could prevent not only a lifetime of suffering for one child, but generations of trauma from repeating?

With support from Impact100 Southern Indiana, Family Ark will launch two new behavioral health initiatives designed to meet youth wherever they are on the spectrum of trauma, grief, substance use, and pain:

• Seeking Safety Outpatient Groups – Seeking Safety is an evidence-based treatment that helps people with trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder, and substance misuse. These 10-week groups will be offered both on our Jeffersonville campus and inside the Clark County Juvenile Detention Center, ensuring teens in the highest-risk settings are not left behind.
• Teen Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) – 9 hours per week of structured therapy following the Matrix Model for Teens and Young Adults curriculum, a proven Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) for people ages 13 to 25. Our IOP program allows teens to receive intensive care for substance use and trauma while staying connected to school and family.

Funding will allow us to hire an additional therapist, purchase program workbooks and group materials, provide a laptop and office furnishings for the new staff member, and cover hiring requirements.

This project will directly benefit at least 70 young people from Clark, Floyd, and Harrison counties each year, providing life-saving treatment for trauma, grief, and substance use disorders, reducing symptoms, and offering real alternatives to isolation, suicide risk, school failure, family disruption, and incarceration. Its impact will ripple outward: families will be stronger, schools more stable, and our community will begin to break the cycles of trauma and substance use that feed both family disruption and juvenile detention.

Over time, we envision a stronger community where fewer youth are locked in detention, fewer families are torn apart, and more children grow up safe, resilient, and hopeful.