Our Mission
The Center for Resilience is the former New Orleans Therapeutic Day Program. The Center is an innovative partnership among educators, clinicians, and medical practitioners and provides clinically sound, academically effective, and culturally sustaining services to ensure the emotional well-being and academic readiness of children with behavioral health disabilities in the Greater New Orleans region. Currently, the Center offers separate settings for children in grades K-8 with moderate to significant, diagnosed behavioral health disabilities whose needs cannot be met in a traditional school.
We work with students to build the skills necessary to be successful in a less restrictive school setting so they can one day transition back to their home schools. Ultimately, we aim to make sure all children with behavioral health needs have access to the appropriate services and placements.
Our Work
Studies suggest that approximately 60 percent of children in New Orleans suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and New Orleans children are 4.5 times as likely as their peers nationwide to demonstrate signs of Serious Emotional Disturbance. And, although approximately 10 percent of students with behavioral disabilities are served outside of typical school settings nationwide, just 0.4 percent of students in Louisiana are served in alternative settings, highlighting the absence of appropriate placement and intervention options. To address these unmet needs, the Center provides caring, non-punitive, therapeutic milieu with positive behavioral supports, trauma-informed approaches, evidence-based mental health practices, small-group classroom instruction, and therapeutic recreation activities. We also offer itinerant home-bound instruction and counseling services, and school-based consultations on request. Over time, the Center seeks to expand to build a continuum of mental health placement options for children and adolescents in the Greater New Orleans area.