Bethesda Family Services Foundation is reaching people all over the country and beyond while they remain in their homes. New internet technology allows Bethesda to conduct live interactive webcasts to take people through the relational pain in their lives without the high cost of counseling. The Restoring Relationships Model written by Bethesda President Dominic Herbst Provides a Journal for those who are registered for the webcast. The Restoring Relationships Model has universal application and applies to anyone who has experienced some form of pain in current or past relationships. In an imperfect world that includes pretty much everyone. Read the full article.

 

Dominic was featured on The Heather Lloyd Show on August 4 and 5 live from 2-3 p.m. (CT) and replay from 8:30-9:30 p.m. (CT).  KPRZ (1210 AM) is a San Diego, CA area Salem Communications owned Christian Talk radio station. KPRZ airs national programs such as Focus on the Family with Dr. James Dobson and several other popular local radio shows such as Terry Frost, Tom LeVine, and Noah Dingley.

This event included powerful testimonies from those who had received healing from the Bethesda Model for reconciliation.

Below is a podcast from a KSLR San Antonio, TX broadcasted on May 19, 2009.

 

 

Bethesda Family Services Foundation’s Founder & President, Dominic Herbst, M.S., M.A., Certified Psychologist, provided a one-day seminar entitled Restoring Relationships: Healing for the Brokenhearted for 40 staff and volunteers of The Pregnancy Care Center of the Susquehanna Valley and the Susquehanna Valley House of Hope on May 28, 2008 at the Crossroads Church of the Nazarene. The event was filmed by CCN for future use with Herbst’s Restoring Relationships curriculum. Individuals were specially invited to attend in order to have a live audience for production purposes.

Participants were overwhelmingly appreciative of the training. Comments from evaluations included: Amazing witness. I am speechless to share how my heart and soul were touched. Inspiring, Empowering, God-given. This was life-changing, uplifting and encouraging. I really felt like I learned a lot to share with the teens I work with and even in my own life as a single mom.

The Restoring Relationships material includes an Interactive Journal and a Resource Manual. These materials may be purchased by visiting www.bfsf.org. The Model and curriculum are designed to bring victory and healing to the lives of troubled individuals and families. The NEW Restoring Relationships training on DVD will be available soon. For more information, please call 523-0605, or visit the web site at www.bfsf.org.

 

Bethesda Family Services Foundation has been awarded a capacity-building grant from the National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI) in the amount of $25,000. Twenty-five organizations across the country were selected from a total of 228 applications. The purpose of these awards is to develop the organizations’ capacity to effectively serve families and fathers. Bethesda’s parenting programs, the focus of this grant, serve incarcerated adults in seven federal correctional institutions. The funds will provide for improvement to the parenting program by further developing/updating curriculum, staff training, and offering to participants a workbook/journal, based on the curriculum, as well as other miscellaneous items. Technical assistance from NFI and ICF International will be provided to Bethesda. The funds / assistance provided by this grant will allow Bethesda to achieve even more success in achieving their mission of “healing hearts and changing lives.”

The Bethesda Model is the only one of its kind in the country that gets to the source of rage in the emotions of those exhibiting antisocial and criminal behaviors. Project directors, Max Harrison, Executive Director, and Lisa Storer, Executive Assistant, will work closely with NFI from their national headquarters in Lewisburg, PA.

 

Bethesda Family Services Foundation, lead by Founder and President, Dominic Herbst and Executive Director, Max Harrison, has recently entered into a partnership with the nationally-recognized organization, Eckerd Youth Alternatives. Founded by philanthropists Jack and Ruth Eckerd, Eckerd Youth Alternatives (EYA) is one of the nation’s leading providers of services for troubled youth. As a private not-for-profit organization, EYA serves nearly 10,000 children each year. Since 1968, more than 70,000 young people have been helped through a range of program models in more than 40 locations in nine states: Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Louisiana, Ohio, Vermont, Rhode Island and New Hampshire. EYA has contracted for training in our Relational Healing and Peer Governance Models for their Ohio Girls Challenge Program and three programs in Florida - the Youth Development Center and Intensive Halfway House in Okeechobee, and the Leadership Program, Ft. Pierce, Florida. Herbst and Harrison have traveled to Ohio and Florida to train the staff of these four programs in Bethesda’s unique model of emotional healing and family reconciliation. David Dennis, President and CEO of EYA, believes that the Bethesda Model will help the agency achieve its goal of “improving the future, one child at a time.”

 

Bethesda Family Services Foundation received an award of $500,000 from the National Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). It is one of the largest single awards given to a Pennsylvania program from the United States Department of Justice. Dominic Herbst, Founder and President, has made several presentations to Administrator Robert Flores and his staff over the last two years and his office has high regard for the Relational Healing Model created by Herbst.

Bethesda Family Services Foundation (Bethesda) was formed to heal the hearts and change the lives of troubled individuals and distressed families. In an effort to achieve their mission, they work to replicate their model by disseminating their treatment methods to other program providers. The grant funds will allow other agencies to commit to a full three-year contract with Bethesda, which would provide for training, consultation, technical assistance and certification of their programs. Those agencies committed to this project include: foster care, mentoring, residential treatment programs, community-based nonresidential programs, and adult prisons.

The Bethesda approach expands the knowledge base of other providers as well as the clients and family members affiliated with those programs by training staff and certifying programs in Bethesda’s two systems – Relational Healing counseling and Peer Governance behavior management. This addresses the root causes and risk factors associated with juvenile delinquency and supports positive youth development at the same time, which can truly enhance the juvenile justice system overall.

Detailed manuals, supplemented by video trainings and weekly consultations with Bethesda trainers are provided on an ongoing basis. Additionally, unique learning opportunities are presented through hands-on trainings. These sessions expedite the learning process for trainees as well as participants. The training team missions are lead by Herbst and Executive Director, Max Harrison.

By training these models over a broad spectrum of caregivers throughout the nation, Bethesda hopes to bring healing, reconciliation, and restoration to thousands of clients and their families. Over 50,000 lives have been impacted thus far by the Foundation’s initiatives. This is Bethesda’s third grant from OJJDP.

 

Dominic P. Herbst, Founder & President, Bethesda Family Services Foundation, was asked to write an article for the parenting ministry of the Association of Marriage and Family Ministries. His article, "How Do I Open My Child's Heart?", was published on their web-site.

 

An article featuring Founder & President Dominic Herbst’s curriculum, Restoring Relationships, was published in The Correctional Trainer, an official publication of the International Association of Correctional Training Personnel. The article, “Rehabilitating Through Restoring Relationships: A Summary of this Healing Curriculum,” provides an overview of how this Model helps adults and children heal emotional wounds caused by those who have offended or betrayed them, the topic on which Herbst presented at the IACTP’s conference in Atlanta, GA last fall.

 

Bethesda Family Services Foundation receives praise from the North Carolina Governor's Crime Commission. Durham County's A New Day Program has seen a significant decline in troubling behaviors like violence and drug abuse, increased school attendance and greater academic performance due to Bethesda's cost effective therapeutic model.

 

by Gina Crocetti Benesh
In this issue I share with you how one of our South Puget Sound nonprofits, Faith Homes, is quickly and effectively turning around the effects of horrible experiences for teen girls through a 4 step model: identifying, understanding, confronting, and forgiving. I hope you enjoy Kennetha's story

 

Published: 05/10/2006 on www.corrections.com by Sara Etter
Tucked away in Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Mountains, Allenwood Penitentiary inmates are using group therapy sessions to learn when they are angry and when they filled with rage with the help of the Bethesda Family Services Foundation. The foundation provides therapeutic services to inmates nationwide as part of a pre-release program that helps offenders prepare for their return home.

 

Last year we reported that Faith Homes had taken the big step to commit to a three year process to implement a new therapeutic model called Relational Healing. Relational Healing takes participants through a process of healing based on the following four steps:

Admission and Grieving: The first step toward victory and healing, after a primary relationship has broken down, is admission and grieving. As pain is poured out, healing begins to pour in. "The rain of grieving will quench the first of rage."

Confrontation and Disclosure: The victim is now ready to confront his painful past and the offender(s) who contributed to it. The process begins with a series of assignments which are set forth in letter form by the victim to his parent(s) and/or offender(s). When these written memories are applied, the result is truly life-changing for the participant. The final stage of confrontation and disclosure requires the victim to take accountability for his offenses of retaliation toward his own victim(s). This allows for complete restoration.

Forgiveness and Reconciliation: This third stage requires a purposeful decision on the part of the victim to let go of the bitterness and rage that previously owned him. He is not surrendering to the offender, but rather the bitterness he feels toward the offender. The choice to forgive is always difficult, but only this decision will bring emotional healing to the victim and those around him.

Restoration and Healing: After the victim has progressed through each of the three previous steps to healing, he is now at peace with his past and able to regulate his emotions. He must then make a contractual commitment to release his offender(s) and move forward toward rebuilding his current relationships. This results in emotional and relational healing. Only then is he able to develop healthy and lasting relationships.

In the past year we have learned just how powerful Relational Healing can be. We have seen families reconnected after years of no contact. We have seen teens truly grieve over the pain they were caused by those who were supposed to love and protect them the most and we have seen parents acknowledge that they too were severely hurt when they were children. While the premise has been simple, the results have been profound.

I'm pleased to say that after a year of working to truly understand the power of the model, Faith Homes will become Certified as a practitioner of Relational Healing in May. The certification will signify that Faith Homes staff have demonstrated proficiency in understanding and applying the model. It will also indicate that Faith Homes' clients have an understanding of the model and how it applies to their lives and healing.

By Ken Maaz, Executive Director, Faith Homes
Excerpted from Homefronts Newsletter

(Faith Homes Relational Healing Certification Review is scheduled for May 8 & 9, 2005.)