Family Options Counseling therapists have extensive experience working with children, adolescence and young adults.  Our individual sessions begin with developing individual treatment goals so that we can best meet your treatment needs.  Therapists are provided regular clinical supervision to ensure that treatment goals are reviewed and outcomes are being measured. Our therapists offer services for individuals experiencing a variety of concerns including:

• Adolescent Stressors
• Conduct Problems
• Juvenile Delinquency
• Behavioral Control Problems
• Risk-taking Behaviors
• Depression / Anxiety
• ADHD
• Autism Disorder
• Educational Problems
• Physical or Sexual Abuse or Childhood Neglect
• Parent – Child Relationship Challenges
• Identity Development

Our therapists preference when working with young people, is to have family support involved. Family therapy might involve looking at parent-child interactions, relationships between brothers and sisters, or other challenges presented by extended family members.  By addressing the communication patterns, feelings, attitudes, expectations, and interactions of the family dynamics, therapists strive to lead the process to facilitate positive changes.

Family Options utilizes group therapy for several reasons. Due to the developmental level of children and adolescents, they respond well to group therapy and tend to enjoy learning alongside their peers.  Youth tend to work through difficult issues more readily when they can observe that other youth struggle with similar problems. Family Options Counseling therapists are engaged in regular training to maintain awareness of best practices for group therapy. Our groups are primarily skills based making the group process comfortable for youth as they can choose to disclose less in group than their individual therapy services. All of our group services have clinically driven objectives and measures progress throughout the group and at the end of group. Several of our group programs offer sustaining group options for those youth that opt to remain in a group for maintenance purposes. 

Play therapy is mostly utilized for younger children and sometimes adolescents and families. Children are effective at communicating and expressing themselves through play. As therapists, utilizing this natural strength within children can be a powerful tool when working through difficult issues. Family Options has a play therapy room specifically designed for this type of therapy and has therapists available that have been trained using this approach.  Due to the specialized approach of play therapy, supervision within the play therapy room will often be conducted through direct supervisor observation or audible recordings. 

Co-Parenting Family Therapy

Overview:

Dr. Diorio has created a clinical program in an attempt to provide structure through a therapeutic lens for families that are struggling with the effects of a high conflict co-parenting relationship. This is a multipronged therapeutic process designed to support the family in managing the separation between parents; the adjustment of the children residing in two homes; and most importantly offering opportunities for the children to have an authentic relationship with both of their parents without the interference of the other parent or other family members. 

There are typically two therapists involved; one therapist to work with the co-parents and one to work with the children. The children’s therapists will engage both parents with the children, but often in separate sessions. The children’s therapy includes clinical treatment goals specific to that child’s needs as well as a goal to offer opportunities for a child to work with both parents in a therapeutic setting. The focus is essentially on the children and partnering with the parents to be able to gain perspective on how to engage in healthy co-parenting despite a high conflict relationship. 

The therapist is not targeting reconciliation of the parents and is not likely to try to resolve conflict, but instead will work with the parents on the communication that directly impacts the children. Oftentimes, the therapist will consult with the Guardian Ad Litem, Custody Evaluators or Family Court Appointed Social Workers. In order to prevent a conflict of interest or alignment issues with the therapeutic process, the therapist will not provide recommendations about placement or custody. The therapist will also request to not be part of testimony in a trial as that tends to create alignment problems within the therapeutic relationships. 

Co-parenting Component:

Clinical objectives include working with the parents on their co-parenting skills as well as improving strategies related to co-parenting. This is a family system approach with the majority of the clinical work being done at the parent level. The trajectory of this process is typically done in stages. 

The initial co-parenting therapy stage is through individual therapy services for the parents specifically providing education and skills related to loyalty conflicts with children and parental alienation. The individual sessions are still focused on the family goals, not individual goals for each parent. 

The subsequent stage include co-parenting sessions targeting communication strategies coupled with a review of the use of the Our Family Wizard communications and its functionality in regards to the co-parenting needs. This segment of the family therapy can vary in length depending on the level of hostility for a co-parenting dyad and frequency of obstacles. The joint co-parenting sessions are structured and often through a telehealth platform (audio only) to promote effective communication about the children and to decrease a pattern of hostility and undermining behaviors towards the other parent.  There are times when parents’ significant others may be asked to attend some of the sessions if they have an impact on the children. 

The final stage is maintenance in which co-parenting sessions are utilized to make more difficult or more emotionally charged decisions with the structure of a clinician present. In this stage, the parents are expected to utilize the co-parenting therapist as a resource when they are struggling with communication or find themselves reverting back to maladaptive patterns.

Family Therapy Component:

The component of therapy working with the children is often started with rapport building and treatment planning in order to understand the child’s mental health needs in general and as it is related to the family dynamics. The child’s therapist may ask the parents to attend therapy sessions on an alternate week basis in order to ensure that both parents are involved and in support of the treatment objectives. Having both parents involved also reduces the likelihood that the co-parenting conflict does not contaminate the child’s therapy. There are many therapeutic strategies that can be utilized to promote healthy parent – child relationships and these strategies are determined based on the child’s needs.

Family Options Counseling has worked to recruit specialists to make up the team of therapists. The diversity that exists amongst the treatment team offers a wide range of professional expertise. Many times, a family, school, or another agency may require guidance in the form of professional consultation to assist in evaluating treatment success, planning and outcomes. Our therapists have frequently been utilized as consultants given our areas of expertise. Examples of areas of specialization would include but are not limited to sexual abuse issues, delinquency, anger management, learning disabilities, parental loyalty conflicts, and social deficits. 

Psychological evaluations are conducted at Family Options Counseling. These are completed by or supervised by Dr. Diorio and Dr. Young. The age range and clinical purpose for the evaluation can vary and there are not any clear exclusions. Dr. Diorio and Dr. Young would need to be consulted to determine if Family Options Counseling is the appropriate agency to complete an evaluation. 

Specialized evaluations are also completed by Dr. Diorio and Dr. Young through their private practices specifically created for evaluations and consultation. 

Dr. Diorio’s area of expertise regarding evaluations includes the following:

• Psychological Evaluations with a Risk Assessment for youth with sexualized at risk behaviors
• Psychological Evaluations with a Parent Focus
• Psychological Evaluations with a Child Focus related to Loyalty Conflict

Dr. Young’s area of expertise regarding evaluations includes the following:

• Psychological Evaluations with a Risk Assessment for youth with developmental delays and sexualized at risk behaviors
• Psychological Evaluations with a focus on developmental delays
• Psychological Evaluations with a focus on Autism Spectrum Disorder