With Your Family in Mind

Every child deserves to have a safe, loving and permanent home.  Children’s Bureau needs foster families who will care specifically for infants and toddlers during the reunification process with their parents. 

Jared Client, age 45, was divorced.  He shared custody of his two daughters, age 10 and 12, with his ex-wife.  (She was a loving mother, but Jared didn’t trust her with money.  Her well-developed talent for spending was not matched with a talent for budgeting or saving.  Jared was still paying off the credit card bills she had acquired during the marriage).

I’m going to save you a couple weeks, months, if not years in answering this frequent question.  Take a brief moment to review the essential questions below. • Have you and your spouse come to a peaceful agreement to end your marriage? • Has your marriage been free of spouse or child abuse? If...

The addiction recovery industry is now a multi-billion dollar industry in America, often exploiting the vulnerable, afraid and ignorant.  When you have a loved one on drugs and are scared you become highly suggestible to professionals who want to take advantage of you.  In a desperate need to solve the problem, we can be duped into believing ideas and methods that don’t work. 

Every year, thousands of children throughout the United States enter the foster care system because their parents were not able to provide them with the protection and nurturing that they needed.  When it is determined by the court that a child will not be able to safely return to their birth families, loving adoptive families are needed to provide stable and permanent adoptive homes for these children.

Most seniors prefer to stay at home as long as possible rather than move to a nursing home.  There are two main ways to hire someone — directly and through a home health agency.  I have written articles about a child being a caregiver under a care contract.  However, this article deals with outside individuals being the caregiver.

The first place to evaluate is the bathroom. While this is the smallest room in the house, bathrooms potentially offer the most opportunities for falls to occur. Bathtub edges may be hard to step over for some seniors. Once in the shower or tub, wet surfaces can cause seniors to slip. Some seniors may not be able to stand steadily while bathing. Others may have trouble sitting down on toilets or standing up again after using them. Wet floors after showers or baths and even bath mats can cause seniors to slip and fall.

Happy New Year, readers of The Magazine of Santa Clarita!  I’ve had great questions submitted to me the past year, and I expect 2012 to be no different.  Here’s a question I recently received about voiceover scams.
Q: I recently saw an ad in the paper that advertised for voice actors, which said “no experience necessary.”  I was tempted to respond, though I’ve never had any training, but a friend of mine in the business said it was a scam and I ended up not going in for an audition. 

The time will come for most of us when we’ll need to consider different senior care options for our loved ones… a nursing home, assisted living community, or in home care with or without help from outside agencies.  Your choices may be numerous, but they’re often far from clear-cut.  Considerations include cost of living, type of services required, physical health, mental condition, mobility concerns, available caregivers, transportation issues, current relationships with loved ones, and lifestyle choices…both yours and theirs.

Many families struggle to provide necessary care for aging or disabled Veterans or their surviving spouses.  Unfortunately, most of these families are unaware of an important benefit available through the Veterans Administration.  This benefit, called Aid and Attendance, is designed to assist Veterans and/or their spouses offset the high cost of care, if the eligibility requirements are met.   

Domestic violence is a terrible thing.  And unfortunately, it happens a lot more than people think.  Here in California, a set of laws exist under the Domestic Violence Prevention Act or DVPA.  Only certain persons may apply for a restraining order under the DVPA.  Those include a spouse or former spouse, and cohabitants or former cohabitants, meaning people who regularly reside in the household. 

When individuals or couples find themselves unable to pay their debts due to job loss, medical issues, unexpected expenses, or other reasons, they should consider whether bankruptcy is a viable option to help solve their debt issues.
Chapter 7 bankruptcy allows debtors to eliminate most unsecured debt, which can be a great relief when debts become overwhelming.  The bankruptcy will also stop most lawsuits, collection efforts, wage garnishments, and repossessions. 

The first of the 78 million baby boomers turned 65 on January 1, 2011, and about 10,000 boomers a day will be reaching that age between now and 2030.
Medicare consists of four major programs:

Often in high conflict divorces and custody battles, one parent will accuse the other of alienating the child from the other parent.  More specifically, the parent believes he or she is a victim of “Parental Alienation Syndrome” or PAS.  But, what really is “Parental Alienation Syndrome” and how do you recognize if you or another parent have exhibited some of the characteristics associated with the alienating process?

When choosing a therapist, you want someone who is a professional, an expert in his or her field.  You also want someone who is motivated by a genuine desire to want to help you.  At Valencia Counseling Associates, they will do just that, as they are committed to meeting your needs to live a healthy life and take pride in your personal wellness. 

“A plausible rumor seems a lot more believable than the truth itself.” – Kobo Abe
Marriage: The problem with rumors is that they are too often treated as fact.  This often is the case in marriage and divorce.  For instance the common belief that 50 percent of all marriages end in divorce is only true to the extent annual divorces outnumber marriages two to one.  That is different than saying half the marriages will end in divorce.  Recent studies show a growth in the divorce rate, but still 60 percent to 70 percent of marriages will not end in divorce.

Dealing with the helpless child is one of the most difficult issues of parenting.  This is the child who is unable to make decisions, take appropriate risks, or work independently.  As a result, adults spend inordinate amounts of time helping, providing reassurance, and encouraging the child to perform tasks that are well within his or her ability level.  Sadly, helping the child backfires and he or she becomes progressively less capable of working without help or to interact in age appropriate ways with others.  Once established, dependent behaviors are hard to change but early intervention can make a big difference in outcome.

From our CEO, CFO, cleaning staff, accounting department and clerical staff, tutors, therapists and social workers, the one word that defines Penny Lane is encouragement.  We are graced to have all of our professionals including behaviorists, psychiatrists, (our team), under one roof (makes for less disruption in a child’s life), but the defining quality we are most proud of is our mutual and combined efforts to express encouragement to our families, children and each other.