New playground added to Chattanooga childhood trauma therapy program

Staff Photo by Elizabeth Fite / The McNabb Center's new therapeutic preschool playground is shown Friday.
Staff Photo by Elizabeth Fite / The McNabb Center's new therapeutic preschool playground is shown Friday.

The McNabb Center has a new playground to support the efforts of its therapeutic preschool program that helps children ages 4-6 recover from traumatic events.

Recess can be a particularly stressful time for children who have experienced trauma, Gayle Lodato, McNabb Center vice president for the Chattanooga area, said during a news conference Friday. Because the setting is less structured than a classroom, children with adverse childhood experiences are more likely to find playgrounds overwhelming.

The new playground is an extension of the therapy children undergo inside McNabb's facility on Shallowford Road, where young children complete a 10-week intensive outpatient program that mirrors a day care or school environment, except the curriculum is emotional-based rather than academic.

"We are teaching our participants how to identify the feelings that they have," Lodato said. "Keep in mind, ages 4 to 6, we really don't know what we're experiencing. We just know something feels uncomfortable. And so a lot of our participants are struggling in their traditional child care setting."

(READ MORE: Childhood trauma changes the brain, experts say)

Children often come into the program showing behavior issues, difficulty interacting with peers and poor social skills as a result of their trauma.

"We're teaching them how to identify what's going on inside of them and then teaching them coping skills — ways to be able to verbalize what they're experiencing — and then some healthy coping skills to help themselves calm down and be successful in their academic environment," Lodato said.

Traumatic childhood events can range from losing a pet or family member and parental divorce to witnessing a house fire or a car accident or physical abuse, sexual abuse and significant neglect.

"So we are able to help them, again, just like in our indoor setting here, out in the playground to take turns to be able to manage some of their frustrations and intense emotions that they experience," Lodato said.

Signs of trauma could be a child not talking and hiding or being overly vocal and aggressive, Jessica Gibbs, a child therapist at McNabb, said.

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"You tend to get more of those referrals. Because the quiet ones, you don't need it (therapy) as much," Gibbs said. "But it really could be anything outside of the normal, healthy operating of a kid's development."

Once a child is referred to the program, therapists such as Gibbs will do an assessment to determine if the program is a good fit.

The therapeutic preschool program in Chattanooga was launched three years ago, though the concept started at McNabb about 35 years ago, Lodato said.

The McNabb Center is a nonprofit provider of mental health, substance use, and social and victim services for roughly 45,000 clients across a 38-county region in Tennessee, with about 3,500 of those clients in Chattanooga, according to a news release.

Contact Elizabeth Fite at efite@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6673.

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