Mission Statement
1.Our mission is to strengthen military families and their support systems by providing psychological, emotional, spiritual and relational education and expert care to service members and veterans, their family members and caregivers, and to the professional community that serves them.
2.The Organization is committed to providing psychological health and wellness opportunities to our military community and linking service members, veterans, retirees and their family members to appropriate community resources.
Description
The Lotus Center for Self Discovery is a non-profit organization originally established by an Army Veteran and spouse of a Retired Army Soldier. Our goal is to provide free, quality psychological health and wellness education and services that include education about psychological symptoms related to combat and military life, evidenced-based practices and treatment options, family communication and support, facilitated group discussion, stress resiliency techniques and self-care practices, and community-based case management services.
The Organization's primary focus in 2011-2012 is the Spirit of America Response (SOAR) programs designed to fill an unmet need our community currently cannot provide due to the vast amount of military residing in the area. The Colorado Springs community is home to a large population of military to include all branches of active service and retired military. We facilitate psycho-educational programs for military families in transition, for caregivers/spouses of disabled service members and for frontline community providers working with the military population. The core components of the programs are education, skill building, expert care and support.
We compassionately recognize that many of our military and their families are young and away from home for the first time, and are frequently dealing with multiple stressors. Beyond dealing with deployment fears and isolation, they often have small children to care for, have few if any family supports, have a lack of knowledge and experience with gaining access to needed resources, and are dealing with financial strain. Many become injured or severely disabled and face numerous physical and mental challenges on their roads to recovery or stability. These stressors often lead to some form of physical, psychological and/or spiritual pain for all involved. For this reason, our organization wishes to respond effectively to these needs within a comprehensive model of care and collaboration to bolster wellness and resiliency while also contributing to a stronger and healthier community.
The organization is composed of a team of professionals that are not new to this community or to dealing with the unique complicated issues specific to military families. Combined, our team has vast experience providing services to both the civilian and military communities in Colorado Springs, Hawaii, Texas and Alaska, plus personal experience as service and family members. At present, the community behavioral health practice we are partners with provides services to a large percentage of active duty military, retirees and family members. We have previous experience in the non-profit world and in community collaboration efforts. We are excited to begin utilizing graduate students from Newman Catholic University this fall to supplement our team. We have been involved in community meetings with other military affiliated agencies such as The Homefront Cares and the Colorado Injured Military Support Network to discuss opportunities to collaborate.
