Therapeutic Services
Meeting the Mental Health Needs of CCYA Youth
The Link to Placement Stabilization
Partnerships & Core Services
In order for youth to achieve in the classroom, workplace, and social relationships, they must first stabilize in their placement. How can youth promote to the next grade level when they keep changing placements and schools and losing credits? How can youth maintain a job when they keep moving away from their job location? And, how can youth develop long-term and trusting relationships when they are constantly challenged with making new friends, meeting new teachers, and living with different caregivers. Bouncing around from place to place due to homelessness, abuse, abandonment, and or multiple foster care placements continually sets our youth in all areas of their lives.
Therefore, since placement stabilization is so critical for their wellbeing, the first step in sustaining a youth's placement at CCYA must be to meet their mental health needs.
In 2024, Success Brand Counseling, under the leadership of CEO, John Kennebrew, brought energy and innovation to CCYA, creating new and meaningful therapeutic experiences for our youth. Alongside traditional Medicaid-funded counseling, their clinical team introduced EMDR, virtual reality, culinary arts-assisted group therapy, and sound bowl meditation - as a pilot project funded by a Federal ARPA grant. By engaging youth through food, technology, and music, the pilot was a big success - even helping to strengthen our youths' trust in the therapeutic process. When ARPA funding ended in mid 2025, gap-filling grants helped temporarily sustain key services. Meanwhile, Success Brand had already begun the process to become a licensed CORE Mental Health Services provider, which will potentially fund many of these innovative therapies. Now, in 2026, CCYA will permanently co-locate a Success Brand team, ultimately expanding access and service delivery through Medicaid billing. With licensure expected by June 2026, CCYA has added a dedicated medical room for a nurse and phlebotomist, therapy spaces for group and individual sessions, and an office for a master's-level Clinical Coordinator.
CCYA also partners with Life Empowerment Services - a private practice and behavioral health agency that seeks to make a positive difference in the lives of teens. Each week, licensed clinicians come onto our campus to provide individual and group therapy sessions for those eligible residents enrolled in their program.
Success Brand Counseling
Therapy Spaces at CCYA