Family Options Counseling therapists have extensive experience working with children, adolescence and young adults.  Our individual sessions begin with developing individual treatment goals so that we can best meet your treatment needs.  Therapists are provided regular clinical supervision to ensure that treatment goals are reviewed and outcomes are being measured. Our therapists offer services for individuals experiencing a variety of concerns including:

• Adolescent Stressors
• Conduct Problems
• Juvenile Delinquency
• Behavioral Control Problems
• Risk-taking Behaviors
• Depression / Anxiety
• ADHD
• Autism Disorder
• Educational Problems
• Physical or Sexual Abuse or Childhood Neglect
• Parent – Child Relationship Challenges
• Identity Development

Our therapists preference when working with young people, is to have family support involved. Family therapy might involve looking at parent-child interactions, relationships between brothers and sisters, or other challenges presented by extended family members.  By addressing the communication patterns, feelings, attitudes, expectations, and interactions of the family dynamics, therapists strive to lead the process to facilitate positive changes.

Family Options utilizes group therapy for several reasons. Due to the developmental level of children and adolescents, they respond well to group therapy and tend to enjoy learning alongside their peers.  Youth tend to work through difficult issues more readily when they can observe that other youth struggle with similar problems. Family Options Counseling therapists are engaged in regular training to maintain awareness of best practices for group therapy. Our groups are primarily skills based making the group process comfortable for youth as they can choose to disclose less in group than their individual therapy services. All of our group services have clinically driven objectives and measures progress throughout the group and at the end of group. Several of our group programs offer sustaining group options for those youth that opt to remain in a group for maintenance purposes. 

Play therapy is mostly utilized for younger children and sometimes adolescents and families. Children are effective at communicating and expressing themselves through play. As therapists, utilizing this natural strength within children can be a powerful tool when working through difficult issues. Family Options has a play therapy room specifically designed for this type of therapy and has therapists available that have been trained using this approach.  Due to the specialized approach of play therapy, supervision within the play therapy room will often be conducted through direct supervisor observation or audible recordings. 

Family Options Counseling has engaged in extensive clinical work with youth and families that have been involved in services due to problems that exist between the parents resulting in custody disputes, shared placement, and high conflict co parenting relationships. Dr. Diorio has created a model to work with high conflict co parenting relationships that aims to reduce the loyalty conflict for the children, increase independent co parenting for the parents and reduce family court involvement. This model requires that the parents are interested in learning about strategies for co parenting as the focus of the treatment is parent driven. Children may also be involved in therapy depending on the family dynamics. 

Family Options Counseling has worked to recruit specialists to make up the team of therapists. The diversity that exists amongst the treatment team offers a wide range of professional expertise. Many times, a family, school, or another agency may require guidance in the form of professional consultation to assist in evaluating treatment success, planning and outcomes. Our therapists have frequently been utilized as consultants given our areas of expertise. Examples of areas of specialization would include but are not limited to sexual abuse issues, delinquency, anger management, learning disabilities, parental loyalty conflicts, and social deficits. 

Psychological evaluations are conducted at Family Options Counseling. These are completed by or supervised by Dr. Diorio and Dr. Young. The age range and clinical purpose for the evaluation can vary and there are not any clear exclusions. Dr. Diorio and Dr. Young would need to be consulted to determine if Family Options Counseling is the appropriate agency to complete an evaluation. 

Specialized evaluations are also completed by Dr. Diorio and Dr. Young through their private practices specifically created for evaluations and consultation. 

Dr. Diorio’s area of expertise regarding evaluations includes the following:

• Psychological Evaluations with a Risk Assessment for youth with sexualized at risk behaviors
• Psychological Evaluations with a Parent Focus
• Psychological Evaluations with a Child Focus related to Loyalty Conflict

Dr. Young’s area of expertise regarding evaluations includes the following:

• Psychological Evaluations with a Risk Assessment for youth with developmental delays and sexualized at risk behaviors
• Psychological Evaluations with a focus on developmental delays
• Psychological Evaluations with a focus on Autism Spectrum Disorder