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Helping Homeless children and Families in Transitional Housing
The evidence-based and manualized Personal Life History Book method has been adapted as a new guided activity workbook My Personal Story About Being Homeless to treat traumatized homeless children and recently homeless children living in transitional houseng. Free Download for individuals and families: Click on the PDF symbol to download the workbook.  My Personal Story about Being Homeless Request a License for Mass Reproduction Introductory material in this workbook will guide parents, therapists and teachers to help children get the maximum mental health benefits from its use. This can be done right in their shelter classrooms. This book can be used for children of all ages. As a treatment method, the use of this resource has been manualized, studied and proven to improve important aspects of behavior and mental health. Homeless children, particularly preschoolers, are currently being treated in a model communitybased program using this guided activity workbook in Seattle, thanks, in part, to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation support of Wellspring Family Services of Seattle. In addition, Wellspring is treating children in transitional housing using the full in-classroom application of Reflective Network Therapy in Wellspring's preschool classrooms. For more information about the work at Wellspring, see the section "Affiliated Service Sites." The tested method underlying the creation of this new workbook was originally designed to help foster children. Peer-reviewed publications of Dr. Kliman's work with foster children appear in Interventions with High Risk Children, (Zelman, A.., 1997, (Chapter by Kliman on Controlled Assessment of the Personal Life History Book Method for Foster Children). Results of Dr. Kliman's Cornerstone Method are also reported extensively in that book, focusing on the IQ rise phenomenon. Dr. Gilbert Kliman currently provides ongoing supervision and additional training as needed for Wellsprring Family Services. He also supervises additional training for well established children’s services in Piedmont, CA and Buenos Aires, a new Reflective Network Service site in St. Louis, MO and at Cornerstone Argentina in Buenos Aires as well as Cambridge, MA with supervision, treating severely emotionally and developmentally disturbed children using Reflective Network Therapy. My Personal Story About Being Homeless was co-authored by Gilbert Kliman, MD, Edward Oklan, MD and John S. Tieman, PhD. A more intensive approach for homeless preschool children In addition to the Guided Activity Workbook designed for homeless children and children in transitional housing, our nonprofit agency provides intensive staff training for agencies now serving homeless children and their families with the more staff intensive, in-classroom method Reflective Network Therapy for use with preschool children. Reflective Network Therapy has been used sucessfully with well over a thousand children over the last four decades and has been rigorously studied and tested. RNT treats emotionally troubled children. Outcomes include positive behavior changes, mental health gains and increasing receptiveness to learning. According to well-controlled studies, Reflective Network Therapy significantly raises children’s IQs This method uses the classroom teacher, the teacher’s aides and a therapist in the classroom, practicing techniques as a network of helping adults. Regular individual therapy sessions using this method require only 15 to 20 minutes for each child, right in the classroom. Parent guidance is given weekly. Cost analysis shows this is all far less expensive and far more effective in shorter time frames than conventional child therapies. This is especially true for children who have had severe stresses or developmental problems. GILBERT KLIMAN, MD, Life Fellow and Diplomate, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Certified Psychoanalyst for Children, Adolescents and Adults, American Psychoanalytic Association, Distinguished Life Fellow and Diplomate, American Psychiatric Association and Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, Medical Director of The Children's Psychological Health Center, Inc. As a pilot application of his techniques for preschoolers, Dr. Kliman opened a Reflective Network Therapy service (then called the Cornerstone Therapeutic Preschool Method) at the Salvation Army Shelter for homeless families in January 1998, serving seven homeless families with preschool children. Dr. Kliman has been a foster parent. Kliman founded and directed three nonprofit organizations for emotionally disturbed children and their families: The Center for Preventive Psychiatry, Inc. in New York (1965-1978), The Foster Care Study Unit at Dept. of Child Psychiatry, Columbia U. (1983-1987), and The Children’s Psychological Health Center, Inc. in San Francisco (1992-ongoing). He coauthored Responsible Parenthood (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1980) with Alan Rosenfeld, MD which was awarded the Janusz Korczak International Literary Prize for "World's Best Book Concerning the Well-Being of Children." In 2009, Dr. Kliman was awarded the prestigious David Dean Brockman Award by the American College of Psychoanalysts for lifelong contributions and leadership in psychoanalysis. In 2008 he was honored as the first speaker at the first joint scientific meeting of the American College of Psychoanalysts and the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Psychodynamic Psychiatry. On this occasion, Dr. Kliman presented a lecture on “A Unifying Theory of PSTD”. See also About Gilbert Kliman, MD in the Training section of this website.EDWARD OKLAN, MD, MPH, Cofounder of The Children’s Psychological Health Center, Diplomate, American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology In Adult, Child And Family Psychiatry, Diplomate, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, Qualified Medical Evaluator. In 1991, Dr. Oklan was awarded the annual Spirit of the Family Award by the Family Services Agency of Marin County, along with Anne K. Oklan, R.N., for their work on behalf of young children and families and the establishing of Pregnancy to Parenthood Family Center. With Dr. Kliman he authored seven previous Guided Activity Workbooks for traumatized children, families, teachers and mental health professionals. He is the founder and Medical Director of C.L.A.S.S. (Communication, Leadership and Social Skills), a preventive mental health group-based program providing psychological immunization of children and adolescents against drug abuse and other high-risk behaviors, as well as consultation to schools. Edited by JOHN SAMUEL TIEMAN, PhD
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