FCC Funds Maryhurst Boutique

by Rick Tipton

Maryhurst has been serving Louisville’s girls for 175 years. Maryhurst residential and community-based therapeutic programs prevent abuse, restore hope, and empower survivors of trauma. Their specialized residential treatment programs for adolescent girls address the trauma of children; most have been severely abused and neglected. Maryhurst uses collaborative therapies: they work together with kids and their families to undo the persistent harms of trauma. In addition to traditional talk therapy, the young women in the program plant gardens, play sports, and practice life skills together. Maryhurst staff works hard to provide a safe environment that offers the tools needed to promote self-worth and restore healthy development.

Maryhurst provides this residential treatment in four locations:

1.Maryhurst's Dorsey campus serves adolescent young women with severe emotional disabilities due to childhood trauma. Because of abuse and extreme trauma, the girls have intense challenges, including self-harm, aggression, substance abuse, developmental delays, physical and medical difficulties. This campus has a medical clinic, a school, and five cottages where the adolescents live and receive 24/7 specialized care and treatment services.

2. Our MB Care program on Brooklawn's campus serves adolescent girls in two treatment cottages. This program helps young women prepare to return home or a community setting successfully from psychiatric hospitalization.

3 and 4.-Maryhurst has two therapeutic group homes. These programs offer a nurturing environment for young women who have completed an intensive residential treatment program. In these programs, teens can transition to the community with continued structure and treatment. One home serves girls who have cognitive delays in addition to childhood trauma. The other is for older girls who are preparing for independent living as young adults.

All programs provide a highly structured environment and specialized treatment to promote healing, self-esteem, and teach skills that help youth overcome their trauma, develop hope, and improve the quality of their lives. Around 90 percent of the young women who successfully complete our residential program move on to more independent settings like their families of origin, group homes or foster families.

Maryhurt's expertise in childhood trauma is now implemented in community services through their Renewal program. Renewal provides counseling and innovative services that "wraparound" the child and family to strengthen families who are "at-risk" and keep children safely in their homes. This support system helps parents/caregivers address underlying issues and strengthen their families. Renewal provides services in homes, schools, and communities where clients reside rather than requiring them to travel to our location. Office visits are also offered as needed. The target population is boys and girls of all ages and their families, as well as individual adults, who are Medicaid eligible and living in the most underserved neighborhoods of Louisville.

First Christian Church was very pleased to partner with Maryhurst again this year to fund The Boutique. Many of the girls that arrive at Maryhurst's various campuses have few to no personal belongings. As they prepare for their journey at Maryhurst, the young women are invited to pick out in the "Boutique." Items at the boutique include clothing, shoes, underwear, stuffed animals, art supplies, specialty hygiene items (brushes and products specific to different types of hair, special lotions, etc.), and winter outerwear. These items may seem like a small contribution; but for the young women, this Boutique is a path to healing. By allowing them to fit in with their peers and be comfortable in their new setting, the Boutique jumpstarts their healing from trauma. The funds from this grant will provide items for the Boutique as the winter months approach, when clothing needs increase.

The wholeness grant used to fund this ministry was made possible through your faithful financial support of our church and its ministries and help fund a variety of efforts to make our world a better place.

You can find more examples of those efforts or apply for a grant to make the world a better place by clicking here.