Healing from Childhood Abuse

Hi, Oklahoma school counselors! I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself as I am new around here. My name is Chelsea Hinkle and I’m a fifth-grade school counselor at Canyon Ridge Intermediate in Mustang Public Schools. This is my fourth year being a school counselor and hanging out with 10-year-olds all day, and I absolutely love it! I am also a licensed professional counselor candidate where I complete many of my outside hours at Bethesda, Inc., a nonprofit organization located in Norman.

Bethesda is the only nonprofit organization in the state of Oklahoma that is solely dedicated to helping children and families heal from the trauma of childhood sexual abuse. All of their services are 100 percent free to everyone, no matter what. You might be wondering how we got from a friendly introduction to what feels like a plug for a nonprofit, discussing the less than joyful topic of childhood sexual abuse. Hang with me. I promise this is relevant to your school counseling program.

Bethesda offers a variety of life-changing services for your students – you can check them out at bethesdaok.org. I am highlighting two that I have used within my school and the impact those services have had on my students.

The first service is their Stop, Go & Tell program. This is a Tier 1 intervention that can be delivered to 100 percent of your students, pre-K through sixth grade (fun fact: this was my first job out of college!). This education program equips students with the vocabulary, permission and courage to speak up about abuse, specifically sexual abuse. This satisfies Erin’s Law requirements. Typically, if you are in the driving range of Norman, one of Bethesda’s qualified presenters will schedule and come present classroom counseling style lessons for about 30 minutes at a time to whichever grades you want, or even your whole building. If you do not live close to Norman, they often hold regional or virtual trainings where you or someone in your district can become certified to present their curriculum. Through this program I have seen dozens of disclosures of sexual abuse made and journeys to healing begin. 

Bethesda also offers a Tier 3 service of in-house therapy that focuses on childhood sexual abuse and works within the trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy model. This service can be a bit trickier to obtain, but I promise you it is worth it. My district had this service for two school years and I had three students who were served by our wonderful Bethesda therapist. One obvious barrier of therapy is the financial aspect (which is a non-issue with Bethesda), but another barrier is the ability of the caregiver to transport the student to the specialized therapy they need. Although my district no longer offers this service to their students, Norman Public Schools does offer this service currently. If this is a service you would like to offer in your district, you can play a pivotal role in advocating to upper administrators in order for all of the agreements to be signed. If this is something your district is interested in, they can reach out to Bethesda’s executive director, Saeed Sarani, at saeed@bethesdaok.org.

Clearly, Bethesda holds a special place in my heart. The space it holds has only grown in size since I’ve allowed them into my school building and seen the positive impact their programs have had on my students. I truly hope you all will consider utilizing their free services to positively impact your students as well.