San Bernardino, CA
"Our mission is to be a catalyst for sustained improvement in the lives of those we touch."
VTC San Bernardino "Bridging Connections" program serves emotionally disturbed youngsters in two residential RCL-14 transition homes. The Bridging Connections program serves San Bernardino County children and adolescents age 8-18 with serious emotional/behavioral/family problems who qualify for services based on a mental health diagnosis. We specialize in serving youth who have a history of abuse, neglect, and multiple placement failures. The goal of this program is to create a community/family reconnection engine for highly disconnected foster youth. VTC San Bernardino provides a stable, structured, and nurturing atmosphere which can provide youth the opportunity to learn and develop new behavioral and life skills while being valued and protected. Treatment services are continued after the youth transitions back to their family settings for an additional 12 months as needs dictate. Basic elements of the program include the following:
- Intensive Family Focused Treatment Services provided within our residential home setting.
- Individual, group, and family therapy services
- Medication Support/Psychiatric Services
- Residential and Educational Services Integration
- Vocational training and emancipation preparation.
- Special recreational opportunities to encourage reintegration into the civic community.
- Trauma Informed Care model
- Focus on building lifelong connections for youth
All of these program elements are supported by a high staff to youth ratio of 1 to 3 in a home-like atmosphere. This high level staffing provides a safe, consistent and predictable structure allowing each individual youth to grow at their own pace and according to their personal abilities. All services are provided according to an individualized treatment plan that is child, youth, and family driven. Much focus is placed on the inclusion of the client and their family in all treatment planning processes, with emphasis on the strengths and resiliency of each individual and their participating family members. At VTC San Bernardino, we are deeply committed to having staff that represent the cultural diversity needs of the children, youth and families we serve, which further supports the unique needs and strengths of our clients as well as ensuring their greatest level of success.
VTC San Bernardino uses a trauma informed approach to residential care. The trauma informed program focuses on understanding youth and their symptoms in the context of their traumatic life experiences, their cultures, and their society. This approach allows staff to respond in ways that lead the youth towards meeting developmental milestones and engineering positive life experiences.
VTC San Bernardino also focuses on building lifelong connections with the youth's family or fictive kin to allow youth to be supported beyond their journey with our program. Victor embraces a family driven care model in a home-like setting and seeks to include the family and/or family support people in every aspect of each client's care. It is our foundational belief that the children and youth we serve will achieve greater and greater levels of success based upon relationships they develop, nurture, and maintain while receiving our services. Thus, we endeavor to maintain maximum flexibility and creativity in searching for more and more ways to support family and other lifelong connections.
