Arsht-Cannon Fund Supports Bilingual Therapy

Thanks to generous grants from the Arsht-Cannon Fund, the DGS PCIT team in Sussex County is engaging some of the area’s underserved Hispanic families in a special kind of therapy. The therapy is PCIT—an empirically-supported treatment developed by Dr. Sheila Eyberg for conduct-disordered young children that places emphasis on improving the quality of the parent-child relationship and changing parent-child interaction patterns. One mother served by the program said that when she finally found DGS she felt like she could breathe and was being helped for the first time. Previously distressed by her son’s behavior, she faced not only language barriers, but transportation barriers and waiting lists as well, before she found help at DGS. As a client at DGS she was relieved to find immediate and consistent help from a therapist who spoke her language. In addition, she was amazed at the results when using PCIT techniques with her son. It was a 2012 Arsht-Cannon Fund grant that allowed DGS to hire Ariadna Aguero as a bilingual behavioral specialist to work in the PCIT program in Seaford. Cori Meek, LPCMH, clinical coordinator; Cristina Machin, LPCMH, bilingual therapist and outpatient therapist; Steve Kastner, LPCMH, therapist; and Lindsay Fitzgerald, BA, behavior specialist are also key members of the DGS PCIT team in Seaford. Dr. Christine Cannon’s enduring commitment to the Hispanic population in Delaware brought a second year of funding to support the PCIT program in 2013. DGS is grateful for the partnership and generosity of Dr. Christine Cannon and the Arsht-Cannon Fund.