With lay-offs, homeschooling pressures, and fears about safety, tensions are riding high in many homes.
STARRY is responding by strengthening families in the safety of their homes through no-cost online and phone services.
"We offer parenting support as well as professional counseling for individuals and groups, with a recently-launched program that specifically supports fathers and father figures throughout Bell and McLennan Counties," they said.
STARRY wants families to know that they are not alone; that they are there to support them, even from a distance.
We want to help families capitalize on their time together to not only survive, but also to thrive,” says Laura Lanford, MA, LPC-Intern, one of the counselors in STARRY’s Fatherhood Focus Program.
STARRY Counseling is funded in part by the Prevention and Early Intervention Division of the Department of Family and Protective Services and all services are free of charge.
Through weekly telehealth counseling and family support sessions, families can work to build on their strengths and increase their resilience.
“We are encouraging families to take the time to find opportunities for self-care, including professional counseling and family support sessions. We need each other right now and although we are physically apart, we are in this together and can rely on each other as a community,” says Jessica Kilpatrick, MA, LPC-S,
STARRY’s Chief Program Officer.
STARRY needs help in identifying those families who need extra support at this time. If you or someone you know is struggling, please call STARRY at 254-244-2400 or visit http://www.starry.org/
STARRY was founded in 2001 in order to nurture children, strengthen families, and restore hope through counseling, family support, foster care, and adoption. Over the past 19 years, STARRY has served tens of thousands of children and families and provided hundreds of thousands of counseling sessions.
In addition to the delivery of crisis family and youth counseling services, STARRY offers a toll-free crisis hotline; short-term, strengths-based, solution-focused family and individual counseling; youth and family case management; youth (coping) skills training; and parenting skills training for eligible youth and their primary caregivers.
STARRY is also a DFPS contracted Child Placing Agency (CPA), and currently coordinates foster care services in dozens of licensed foster homes in Central Texas. STARRY Foster Care is excited to be focusing their efforts on building more foster homes in Bell County.
