Like many teenagers across Maryland, Christopher Proffitt entered the ninth grade at his local public high school this year. And like most parents, Chris’s mom and dad are proud of him. Really proud.
But Chris and his family are not like most. As a younger child, Chris – a sweet boy described as having an empathetic, old soul – experienced episodes of alarming, out-of-control behavior. He would run screaming from adults, tearing things from the walls and rending his own clothes.
So disruptive was Chris’s conduct that he was ultimately removed from his public middle school and, on multiple occasions, committed to a behavioral health facility. His parents tried everything to help, but nothing proved successful – until, that is, something did.
After a short stay at St. Vincent’s Villa, Catholic Charities’ residential treatment program for kids with emotional and behavioral challenges, Chris enrolled at Villa Maria, our special education school serving students with emotional disabilities from kindergarten through the eighth grade. The middle school years spent at Villa Maria proved transformational for Chris, according to his mother, Crystal.
“I love that at Villa Maria it wasn’t just, ‘we’re going to get your kid and fix your kid.’ That’s not it. It’s, ‘we’re going to prepare him to handle these things on his own. We’re going to prepare you to help him handle these things.’ And that’s what they did,” Crystal said.
Villa Maria’s classroom staff, support teams, and clinicians collaborate to deliver customized care, instruction, and service, working in full partnership with parents to empower them to be a part of the treatment process.
“Our kids have unique needs that require unique interventions,” said Daniel Plakosh, principal of Villa Maria.
But the care provided to all students, Plakosh explained, has one thing in common: It is grounded in a trauma-informed therapeutic approach. When young people act out, staff don’t question why they conducted themselves that way. Instead, they ask: How can I help you and what do you need now? The exchange is one of support and care rather than one of confrontation.
Crystal absolutely gushes when conversation turns to the care Daniel and his colleagues provided to Chris. “The formula they’re using is working. And when certain things weren’t working for Chris, they changed the formula for him,” she said.
And Chris was not the only one to benefit from Villa Maria.
“Family therapy also proved enormously helpful,” she said. “We were getting treatment for the whole family so that he doesn’t come back home and everything is the same.”
Crystal knows firsthand what it is like to love and care for a child with behavioral challenges. She also understands how caregivers might feel about reaching out for professional help.
“To people who are resistant, I would say that for every part that you feel like you’re giving up, you’re getting back something in the improvement of your life, in the improvement of your child’s life — and that’s everything,” she said.
