Taos Behavioral Health

Counseling for Adults, Children and Families

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TBH is here for Students and Families!

Mary Gray McPhailBy Mary McPhail Gray
NVW Board Chair

School begins — an exciting and challenging season of the year!  As August 10th arrived, students and parents were dealing with the annual change in schedules and activities from summer to an academic year.

For many students, the year-opening is stressful — new teachers, new fellow students — new expectations that are not all clear.  Nonviolence Works clinicians are stationed in schools across the district — ready to provide support through individual counseling appropriate to whatever issue a student might present and to provide group counseling around common themes.

The services of NVW are particularly critical at a time when a significant partner in behavioral health services — TriCounty Behavioral Health Services — is closing its doors on August 31 but moving to immediately transfer clients.  Family members who have relied on TriCounty services in Taos, Raton or Clayton may feel the stress of uncertainty about how their behavioral health and substance abuse treatment services will be met. [Read more…] about TBH is here for Students and Families!

A Year of Success!

Mary Gray McPhailBy Mary McPhail Gray
NVW Board Chair

Nonviolence Works faced challenges, opportunities and success in 2017.  We want to reach out to Taosenos and celebrate our success!  This year our CEO Simon Torrez and our Lead Clinician Sadie Quintanilla have led the staff through successful changes with enhanced clinical expertise, larger staff, stronger programs, and exciting new plans for additional services.

We welcomed three new clinicians, and all our clinicians enhanced and focused their therapeutic skills. You may not know that we have an expert in infant mental health, several clinicians who respond with skill in crisis situations, a clinician who is skilled in vocational rehabilitation, and several who regularly intervene to prevent suicides.  Our clinicians all have master’s degrees and are able to deal with grief and loss, trauma, anger management, and custody and foster child issues. [Read more…] about A Year of Success!

“I would have been dead on the street—”

Mary Gray McPhailBy Mary McPhail Gray
NVW Board Chair

“ . . . were it not for my father and my wife. I was deeply into drugs—selling and using—and in gangs and any street adventures I could find,” says James Mondragon, Educational Assistant at Nonviolence Works.

Mondragon was the oldest of five boys, and the family moved around a lot—Utah, Nevada and New Mexico. Both parents were drug addicts, and abuse and violence were daily occurrences.  “My mother decided to get herself clean so she left all of us and moved away.”  Later Mondragon’s father decided he also wanted to get clean, so he moved the boys to Taos when James was a teenager.

James hated it.  He didn’t know anyone and didn’t have his usual contacts, so the minute his dad left the house on any errand, he slung his backpack on and headed for the highway—hitchhiking back to Albuquerque.  But again and again his father came and found him—and “hauled me back to Taos.” [Read more…] about “I would have been dead on the street—”

How We Support Changes in Our Clients

Mary Gray McPhailBy Mary McPhail Gray
NVW Board Chair

Everyone in the behavioral health field is wants to support their clients through changes they have identified—whether it be relieving depression, processing grief, learning more self control and goal setting, or acquiring new relationship or parenting skills.

How do we help them change? What makes it possible for people to change in a relationship with a counselor or social worker? Is there a special “one size fits all” program or approach?

Researchers and behavioral health care providers have asked these questions in order to improve their success with clients. Recent research gives some interesting answers. Repeatedly, findings describe the “therapeutic alliance” or the partnership between the therapist and the client as a key variable. This essentially means that a trusting relationship is developed where the client feels empathy, acceptance and warmth from the therapist. They develop a shared work plan devoted to the client’s needs.

Further research also suggests that the greater and varied life experiences a therapist has is often a key factor in being able to relate to a variety of clients. At Nonviolence Works, our clinicians have a range of experiences and skills. [Read more…] about How We Support Changes in Our Clients

Play Power: TBH Staff Member Builds Confidence in his Students

by Mary McPhail Gray
NVW Chair

“I give them a safe place to rough house and learn how to use their bodies” states Ryan Daly—the play therapy leader at Nonviolence Works. For the past three years, Daly has been leading the Familia Y Mundo therapeutic after-school program participants in activities designed to get them moving and learn body awareness.

Ryan Daly

Ryan Daly

Daly and the FYM staff see dramatic differences in the students that participate. As he enters the classroom he notices youth who are “shut down”—even with their heads down and not talking. After a period in the play therapy activities—they are vibrant and smiling with happiness. Daly knows that this contrast is partly due to the advantage he has of seeing them after a long day in the classroom—often sedentary—and the chance to play and move is rewarding. [Read more…] about Play Power: TBH Staff Member Builds Confidence in his Students

Letter to Donors

Dear Donor,

Happy New Year!  We want to begin 2017 by thanking you for your support of Nonviolence Works last year, and by sharing some of our accomplishments that your generosity helped make possible.

Familia y Mundo (FYM), our after-school and summer therapeutic program that provides individual and group counseling, served 120 youth during 2016.  Now in its fifth year, and housed at Ranchos Elementary School through a cooperative arrangement with the Taos Municipal Schools, it provides youth with support and the opportunity to practice social and emotional skills in a safe environment. [Read more…] about Letter to Donors