Founded: 1976

Alternative Homes for Youth (AHFY) began in 1976 as a group home for teenage girls in Denver, Colorado. AHFY soon grew to meet the needs of a complex and diverse population. We developed many programs and services in several locations across Colorado, ranging from outpatient day treatment to Emancipation services, from Golden to Greeley. As time progressed, however, the changing needs of our communities altered our path at Alternative Homes for Youth. We now concentrate our energies on preventing future victims of violence and teaching families how to be safe and healthy, functional members of the community. Alternative Homes for Youth is a not-for-profit state-licensed mental health treatment organization dedicated to helping youth and their families find new hope and opportunity. The youth we treat have had life experiences worse than any nightmares one can dream up. Parents forcing their children to have sex with them, making their children do drugs or prostituting them, youth running away from home and joining gangs, or young teenagers selling themselves on the streets in an effort to “free” themselves from their current lives—these are common real life stories heard by the youth treated at Alternative Homes for Youth. This is not an episode of Law and Order SVU. This is real and is going on in your community. This reality is what begets AHFY’s crusade to provide trauma therapy to these abused and tortured kids in order to provide them with an opportunity to become healthy children and grow into effective members of our community. We can not do this without you.

Through combining several different mental health approaches (including, but not limited to, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Internal Family Systems Therapy, Art Therapy, and Psychodynamic), therapists join with clients in a structured, safe setting to access and heal the traumatized parts of the youth. Sessions occur at least once per week in a one-on-one setting with a therapist and a youth. In addition, youth will work through their trauma experiences in an art therapy group twice monthly. In addition to that, some youth who have been sexually victimized, will be referred to be included in a therapy group that is specifically designed for youth who are victims of sexual assault. All of these modalities are designed and implemented to heal the youth from their trauma and support them in truly being healthy again. As the youths’ issues are extremely individualized, the curriculum of each Trauma Specific Therapy is dynamic. Common themes of the Trauma Specific Therapy will address: personal identity; self awareness; boundaries; processing feelings; positive self expression; and their own victimization of trauma.

The anticipated benefits of supporting this project are truly innumerable. We will never be able to calculate how many people will not become victims of abuse or another crime as a result of the education, treatment and services that our clients receive, thus healing them from their own trauma and therefore equating to the significantly decreased likelihood that they will abuse or harm others. These tormented children are in your community right now and we are their only chance to get safe. This is a desperate time for these kids and our community. If we do not help them—now—they will continue the cycle of abuse that they have been forced into. If organizations and community members do not provide these youth with the health and human services support that they desperately require, they will hurt themselves and hurt others. This will go on for generation to generation to generation. The time for help is now. We can not do it without you.

A Sample of AHFY’s Trauma Therapy Group Approaches
? Survivors of Sexual Abuse Group- this group is exclusively for those clients who are victims of sexual abuse. This is a supportive, therapeutic group facilitated by two master level clinicians and supervised by the SOMB Provider. ‘Survivors Group’ meets one time every other week at 1 ½ hours per session.
? Art Therapy Group- The goal of the group is to utilize the creative process in supporting the youth in bringing new insights into their challenges. The curriculum is dynamic and themes will address: personal identity, self-awareness, boundaries, processing feelings, positive self expression and their own victimization of trauma, to name a few. The art therapy groups will be grounded in Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy. This group meets every other week for 1 ½ hours and is facilitated by two art therapists.
? Healthy Relationships Group- This group is psycho-educational in nature and teaches the clients about healthy relationships, including healthy sexuality, domestic violence, power and control, communication, and values exploration. This group meets weekly and is facilitated by a team of counselors.
? Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) (Francine Shapiro)- EMDR, a trauma-focused therapeutic modality, is provided by licensed, EMDR-trained clinicians, when indicated.
? Cognitive Behavior Group Therapy- This group consists of a psycho-educational component and a therapeutic component. This group focuses on teaching the clients how to recognize how their cognitions affect their behavior and gives opportunity for the clients to practice healthy ways of thinking and behaving in an effort to create healthier lifestyles. This group focuses directly on decreasing symptoms of various Axis I mental health diagnoses for each client. This group meets twice weekly for 1 ½ hours per session and is facilitated by a Licensed Professional Counselor with Full Operating Level Provider status and is co-facilitated by a licensed or provisionally licensed therapist.

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