This time two years ago, Sage felt stressed and hopeless. She and her boyfriend had welcomed their first child, Grayson, and Sage was determined to create a happy, healthy life for her son. But they struggled to afford housing and when Grayson was three months old, Sage and her family were forced to move into...
Eight-year-old Kendale wears a small beaded bracelet on her right wrist. The beads include mud from the Dead Sea, the lowest point on Earth, and water from Mount Everest, the highest peak in the world. It’s a reminder that even on your lowest days, there is nowhere to go but up. And on your highest...
LSI has been a backbone for me when I want to give up.
No parent should feel alone, stressed, or hopeless when it comes to caring for their children’s health. But those emotions were common for Judy four years ago. It started when her son began struggling with severe behaviors. He began seeing a litany of different doctors and specialists. Judy needed to coordinate the appointments and medications...
On an early October morning in Burundi in 1993, Vince’s life changed forever. He and his parents were getting ready to leave for church. Then, the gunshots began. Their village was under attack, and Vince’s family was forced to flee first to the Democratic Republic of Congo, then across the border to neighboring Tanzania. When...
Logan and his mother, Michaela, didn’t know where to turn. Since he was 5 years old, Logan had moved in and out of hospital visits and residential treatment centers across Iowa. For 13 years, Michaela tried desperately to find the right approach to address his behavioral needs. But nothing was working. “He spent a year...
Six-year-old Logan had a big imagination. He enjoyed playing pretend and making his teachers and classmates believe he had superpowers. But as Logan became more and more absorbed in his imaginary world, it became harder for his mother, Jennifer, to know when her son was telling the truth. In Logan’s mind, the lines between real...
From a building on LSI’s Bremwood Residential Treatment Center campus, snippets of conversation can be heard over the soft whirring of sewing machines. “Does anybody have any blue thread?” “I’m going to sew a Santa design on my shirt!” For the past year, youth on campus have been learning new sewing skills thanks to a...
Fifteen-year-old Izabella felt trapped and alone. She struggled with anxiety and depression, breaking down multiple times each week. She moved in and out of a mental health institution. That’s when Izabella and her mother, Meghan, discovered LSI’s Behavioral Health Intervention Services. For almost two years, Izabella collaborated with her LSI mental health team and in...
