Neglect. Abuse. Trauma. These can be destructive forces in a child's life if not addressed. The Stern Center for Behavioral and Developmental Health in Connellsville has expertise in treating these problems. "These kids truly can be helped, if they get the right kind of treatment," said Carole Stern, psychologist and CEO of The Stern Center. The center provides various services including: Behavioral Health Rehabilitation Services, treating the child in the home, school and community; Outpatient, psychiatric services; Assured Quality Employee Assistance Program, maintaining a healthy and productive work force; Strength Based Mental Health Services with intensive one-on-one therapy. In addition to Connellsvile, Stern also has offices in Carmichaels, Cranberry and Irwin. The center started to offer Family Based Mental Health Services a year ago. They are short-term, in-home services for children and adolescents who have experienced trauma or abuse. Although the primary client is the child, the program treats the family as a unit. "It's never one person that's the problem. You may see the one child who's acting out, who seems to get the brunt of the problem, or it looks like that's the problem," said therapist Janice Gessel. One of her clients, a 6-year-old boy, displayed behavioral disorders, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and oppositional defiant disorder. Gessel and her colleague, Amanda Newhouse, found out that the child lived in an abusive household. His mother's live-in boyfriend was physically abusing and intimidating her, Gessel said. The first thing that the Gessel and Newhouse team did was to have the family sign a "no-violence contract." They connected the boyfriend with anger management and parenting classes. The next step was to teach the mother to be more assertive, not to allow violence to become acceptable behavior. At one point, the mother ushered her boyfriend out of the house for a short time. The end result was a more stable environment for the child. And in that stable environment, it was then possible to treat the child's trauma that resulted from all the violence he had seen. The Stern Center is one of four mental health service providers in Fayette County -- along with Chestnut Ridge Counseling Services, Pressley Ridge and Southwood Psychiatric Hospital -- that offer the Family Based Mental Health Services program. Carole Stern has brought in specialists to train her therapists. Her most recent instructor was Dr. Robert Schwarz. A psychiatrist from Philadelphia, Schwarz is a nationally renowned author and expert in the field of trauma. He spent one afternoon with The Stern Center staff. Usually, he speaks in front of groups in the hundreds, and usually, "You have to fly to him," said Chris Stern, the center's legal counsel and the son of Carole Stern. Allegheny General Hospital's Trauma Center led another training session at The Stern Center. The treatment of attachment disorder, another service offered by the center, is for children who have typically been adopted from homes where there has been neglect or abuse during the first three years of their lives. Because of this, they are not able to form attachments with their primary caregivers, Stern said. Children with attachment disorder, usually starting at ages 5 or 6, try to maintain control of their world by lying, stealing and acting out. They don't learn the idea of cause and effect, Stern said. The end result can often be disastrous. Untreated children with attachment disorder will sometimes display sociopathic behavior in adulthood. But the disorder can be treated, Stern said. "It's just that that treatment is very different than the treatment you would give to a child who is just having acting-out behaviors for other reasons," Stern said.

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