Updates from Looking Glass
The 14th Annual Looking Glass Healthy Kids, Healthy Futures breakfast fundraiser event, held Tuesday, October 15th at Venue 252 in Eugene, focused on Education programs with a panel of Looking Glass teachers from the agency’s alternative schools. In addition, Looking Glass recognized and honored this year’s Community Partner of the Year - Jennifer Montgomery, the Secondary Special Education Consultant for the 4J School District.
The Regional Crisis Center, Looking Glass’ residential mental health treatment program for youth of all genders between ages 12 and 18, celebrated a milestone in February recognizing it’s 4-year anniversary since opening. Now the program is in the process of expanding and trying to hire more staff!
“I can't believe it's been so long since we had our first intake,” said Caitlin Peoples, RCC Clinical Director. “It's amazing that we're celebrating four years! In that time, we've served over 150 youth.”
A local family with an annual tradition of coming together to collectively donate to a local nonprofit took it upon themselves to outfit every single Looking Glass residential bed with new sheets and pillows this holiday season. The Floyd family, whose annual tradition of giving goes back several years, decided to support Looking Glass this year.
Scott Wilson is the Program Supervisor at the Stepping Stone Program, a residential program that provides long-term treatment to male juvenile offenders, ages 12-18, with a history of family conflict, chronic delinquency, substance abuse, and poor school performance. Scott left behind a career in finance before joining Looking Glass, saying that he was unhappy in his previous line of work and wanted to accomplish something meaningful.
At Looking Glass, we work to provide a variety of educational opportunities for teens that are homeless, have mental health issues, and for whom traditional education is inadequate to meet their needs. We have 3 alternative schools, therapists in 32 schools throughout Lane County, and offer educational services at each of our residential programs.
The Looking Glass residential program retreat took on a different look this year with staff members at each program wearing different colors and large, bouncy balls flying (or wobbling) around a kickball diamond as a new tradition was “kicked” off with a kickball tournament for the ages. In the end, Stepping Stone Program took home the gold (probably plastic really) trophy but fun was had by all.
A group of Looking Glass supporters, board members, staff and elected officials met on Wednesday, July 10th to celebrate the successful opening and operation of the new Regional Crisis Center. Supporters included Department of Human Services Director Fariborz Pakseresht, PeaceHealth CEO Mary Kingston, Oregon State Representative Nancy Nathanson and Oregon State Senator James Manning.
Through collaboration with the Oregon Department of Human Services (DHS), PeaceHealth, Pacific Source Health Plans, Trillium Community Health Plans and other partners, a remodeling project was completed on our River Road campus to prepare it for opening the Regional Crisis Center in the coming weeks. The 24-hour, 14-bed facility will house intensive treatment care clients and serve some of our area’s most vulnerable youth. The RCC will serve all genders from all over the state of Oregon, ages 12 to 18 and will offer group and individual therapy and trauma-informed behavioral support. This is the first facility of its kind in the state and will serve a youth population which is currently severely lacking in treatment options.
Looking Glass currently has five residential programs: Pathways Boys, Pathways Girls, Parole Revocation Diversion, Stepping Stone, and Kyanite. All of these programs provide intensive 24/7 care and treatment to our clients. Watch our video overview and learn about one client’s first and last days in our girls program.
