This year Encouragers Counseling & Training Centers has grown in staffing and services offered to the 3 communities we serve: Riverside, Corona, and Murrieta. In 2018 we'd like to do even more!
Who we have helped: We assisted victims of the Las Vegas and San Bernardino shootings, Southern California fire victims who lost everything they had, military veterans and their families. We've supported parents with special needs children, women of domestic abuse, and first responders who have to deal with their own pains of loss and struggle. We have helped women who have eating disorders, abandonment issues, and pain from childhood abuse. We've come along side Victims of Crime who needed to heal from their assaults and walked with them through the court process. We've helped marriages heal and be restored following the discovery of an addiction or an affair. We've helped people in addiction rehabilitation centers walk out clean and sober with a hope in their heart and a plan in their hands. All in all, 2017 has been a very challenging year for us and for many individuals and families we've been honored to help.
"At the end of the day it's not about what you have or what you've accomplished ...
it's about who you lifted up, who you've made better. It's about what you've given back."
Denzel Washington
Our Challenge for 2018: With the New Year upon us we are looking forward to additional changes in the mental health field;
The Veteran's administration is undergoing changes which could result in their offering less mental health services through the Choices program. This means spouses and children of our military may not be covered for emotional and behavioral services and forced onto MediCal, which is already over-burdened.
More children are being prescribed psych meds for emotional problems, which creates more harm than help.
We can expect even more violence in our schools, in our businesses, and in our homes.
Marriages will continue to fall apart, relationships will be ruined, and everyone will be left broken and in pain unless something can be done to help them.
How your dollars help: At Encouragers, we develop specific curriculum to meet the needs of those individuals and families and offer those classes and groups at low or no cost to them. Currently in development are 3 programs we plan to start offering in the New Year:
Save Your Marriage Before It Starts (SYMBIS)-for couples needing relationship help.
Love and Logic- For parents and children needing a hands-on approach to parenting.
Anger Management- For anyone who is in need of coping skills for anger.
Every cent of your financial gift goes toward making it possible for us to offer these valuable classes. Please consider giving your Year End contribution to the families in your community, your neighbor, your coworker, your mother, your sister, and your friend, who are all in need of help.
Encouragers has chosen the Inland Empire and Temecula Valley communities to serve for very good reasons. Orange County and Los Angeles Counties have money and government funding which does not reach into the I.E. The I.E. has been hit hardest with unemployment, and has more people on welfare, food stamps, and government assistance. City and County programs are limited and the numbers are too large to help everyone in need. Homelessness is up 400% over the past year. We have come to help the ones who are not being helped, who are unseen and drowning in their lack. New York Times bestselling author, Mary Engelbreit says, "Bloom Where You're Planted,” and Encourages has been planted in this garden.
"If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.
7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings,
so also you share in our comfort."
2 Corinthians 1:6-7
God Bless you and your house, and from the Encouragers Team-prayers for a Happy New Year.