Child Guidance Program

• Ensure children thrive within relationships through relationship-focused strategies to strengthen infants, toddlers, school-aged children, and their caregivers.
• Provide individual, family, and group counseling to support behavior change, healing from traumatic experiences, and promote healthy relationships that impact health and well-being across the lifespan.
• Increase protective factors that buffer against and lessen the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).
• Provide trauma-informed and developmentally appropriate strategies to enhance families' ability to provide safe, stable, and nurturing relationships and protective environments.
• Provide Infant Mental Health assessments and treatment to support early childhood and family well-being.
• Administer psychosocial and behavioral screenings, assessments, and evaluations of children.
• Provide evidence-based psycho-educational programs including parenting and children’s groups.
• Provide Early Childhood Mental Health consultation and other programmatic consultations for childcare centers to build, strengthen, and enhance childcare professionals.
• Collaborate with community organizations to ensure systems are in place to meet families’ social-emotional needs
• Consult with community agencies and school systems on behalf of clients and provide special programs as requested.
• Provide training and consultation to other community professionals including school personnel, Department of Human Services, Early Head Start/Head Start, and other mental health professionals.

Behavioral health services are provided by licensed mental health professionals.

Speech-Language Pathology staff:

• Facilitate the early identification of children with a communication delay.
• Refer children who are eligible for services to the appropriate resource.
• Train, educate, and consult with parents and professionals on techniques to promote optimal communication development.
• Provide speech-language pathology evaluation and treatment for children who may not be eligible for other public school or early intervention services.
• Promote health habits which decrease the likelihood that children will be born with, or acquire, a communication disorder.

Speech-Language Pathology Services are provided by licensed Speech-Language Pathologists. Target Population: Families with children from birth to 18.

Child Development services are provided by a Child Development Specialist who holds a master’s degree and a certificate of Certified Child and Parenting Specialist through the Oklahoma Family Resource Coalition. 

A Child Development Specialist can help you: 

• Enhance parent-child relationships and the development of young children by providing information and teaching parenting skills to parents of infants, toddlers, and pre-school children.
• Prevent or reduce developmental problems in young children.
• Assist with coping strategies and resiliency for families and children experiencing stress.
• Screen children’s development and provide information to parents regarding developmental strengths and milestones.
• Assess children’s development by gathering information about the child using an ecological approach of behavior observations; environmental, medical and developmental history; parent-child relationship measures; and standardized developmental assessments. 
• Provide parent consultation and intervention regarding the child’s development and behavior through individual services, which may include coaching, modeling, providing in-depth information, using reflective practice and training specific parenting skills.
• Teach evidence-based parent education groups and providing workshops to promote positive parenting, enhance child development and strengthen family interactions.
• Provide consultation with Early Head Start/Head Start and preschool programs (public and private).
• Provide various contracted services to Early Head Start/Head Start (where applicable per each county health department).
• Provide child development trainings that focus on children's social-emotional, cognitive, communication and motor development to childcare programs, Early Head Start/Head Start programs, and preschool programs (public and private).
• Participate with other health department programs or community organizations to ensure systems are in place to meet families' needs; and
• Consult with various professionals within and beyond the health department regarding children’s behavior and development, and other parenting concerns.

Target Population: Families with children from birth through 8 years of age.