Help Coming This Summer for Traumatized Kids

by Blake Herzog
A nonprofit group will bring a psychologist to Prescott this summer to provide child victims of trauma with detailed assessments toward helping caregivers, professionals and the children themselves understand how the children can grow into happy, productive lives. 
Ohio-based Omphalos, formed to combat child sex trafficking and exploitation, has raised $75,000 throughout Greater Prescott so far at home gatherings and the Suits and Soldiers annual shooting event to support a pilot program, Child Rescue
AZ, where local support pays for free evaluations for child
trauma victims. 

Omphalos CEO Peter Donovan served in the Army with Grant Quezada, who returned to his hometown of Prescott to open John Hancock Barbershop and form downtown’s Founding Fathers Collective. Donovan’s visits to Prescott convinced him the concept would work. 
“It kind of just happened naturally. This needs to be the place, this to be the foundational place that we work with and then create a model to go from there,” he says. 
“Honestly, if we can’t make it work in Prescott where we have a community of support already building and growing, we’d be hard-pressed to make it work anywhere else,” adds Dr. Ashley Poklar, Omphalos’ clinical director. 
A licensed clinical psychologist in Ohio, Poklar has completed biopsychosocial assessments on traumatized children in school settings and private practice, spending 15 to 25 hours interviewing the child and her or his family or guardians, teachers, counselors and others who may have insight into the child. These types of assessments can cost families thousands of dollars.
Poklar will be in Prescott June 21-Aug. 1 to complete these assessments for at least 10 children living in and near Greater Prescott, chosen through referrals. Any child age 4 to 18 who has experienced trauma will be considered, with victims of sex trafficking and exploitation given priority. 
She will write a “Resilience and Empowerment Plan” of around 15-20 pages for each child discussing the traumatic experience’s effects, as well as an analysis of the child’s core strengths and how they can be developed. 
To refer a child for the Child Rescue AZ program email AshleyP@omphalos.pro or visit https://bit.ly/3cKCvaJ
For more information about Child Rescue AZ and Omphalos visit www.omphalos.pro or email peterd@omphalos.pro. Donations can be given at www.givebutter.com/omphalos