PACER (Parent and Children's Educational Resources)
Established 29 years ago when contracted by Dauphin County Court of Common Pleas to provide a mandatory 4-hour Seminar for all separating families where parents and/or guardians filed petitions with the court for divorce where minor children were involved and for custody disputes or changes. PACER staff developed the program, presented the program, and administrated the compliance of mandatory attendance.  The COVID 19 pandemic abruptly brought the in-person education to a halt and staff.  produced an on-line video version of the program. Over the years it was clear that 4 hours of education is not enough to address the fallout from family disruption for children and parents. We expanded into programs to provide coaching and direction to moderate and high conflict co-parents with separate services to their children, reunification counseling, therapeutic supervised visitation, support groups for children and individual therapy for children experiencing family chaos including negative and traumatic experiences with shared custody arrangements and the effects on children when they are the focus of conflict.  •    Population Served -
Adults and Children (ages 4-18) from families where there is a dis-ease caused by a disruption in their bonding and way of relating.
Hours of operation are as follows: Monday-Friday 10:00 am-7:00 PM Saturday 8:30 am-2:00 PM Role of Clinical Staff Provide psychoeducation about best practices in communication under highly stressful circumstances, therapeutic services to aid specific families in a crisis of change to learn coping skills through change and conflict. The parents may or may not be seen together depending on their level of conflict, but both are coached about their conflict style, effective ways to communicate about issues, how to see the difference between an issue that must be addressed and those that are not. Children are counseled about the emotional turmoil caused being in the middle of their parents' or caregivers' fighting. Counseling and education about coping are both designed for each developmental age group.

Special Placement Information:

The Agency is accepting MSW 2nd year and Advanced Standing Clinical.  This internship is not a paid one.  Due to our differing locations, Stephanie will be supervised virtually. She will provide virtual services to the children of high conflict parents, she will shadow me doing coaching with the parents, as well as shadowing me initially doing counseling with the children. The goal will be for her to independently provide direct services to children with responsibility for intakes (bio-psycho-socials) treatment plans, case notes and expansion of her knowledge base about all that is entailed in client care.