“I don’t think we would be where we are at if not for Bert Nash”

Even though she is a teenager, there have been times when Rebecca has had the responsibilities of someone much older.

When her grandmother was sick, she was the caregiver.

When her mother was incarcerated, she was the grownup.

Now she can focus on being a daughter.

“I had to make a lot of adult decisions when my mom was gone,” Rebecca said. “When my mom first got out, she saw me as the little kid she had left behind. But I wasn’t that person anymore. It took us awhile, but we’ve got a lot better understanding of each other now.”

Rebecca was 9 when her mom, Amy, went to prison. She was almost 14 when Amy was released from a halfway house.

“I have had to let go of a lot of anger about what happened,” Rebecca said.

Coming to the Bert Nash Center has helped Rebecca and Amy reconnect as mother and daughter. Rebecca started coming to the Center when she was 14. She’s 16 now.

“There was a lot of chaos in our lives when I started coming to Bert Nash,” Rebecca said.

Before Rebecca came to the Center, Amy had come to Bert Nash at the suggestion of her parole officer. “I was struggling with my mental health at the time,” Amy said. “I didn’t trust anybody.”

Bert Nash Center Child and Family therapist Sunnie Shedd, who has worked with both Rebecca and Amy, has seen a lot of improvement in their relationship.

“When Amy was released, Becca didn’t really know how to let Amy be a mom, because she had been taking care of herself and her grandma,” Sunnie said. “Amy has done a really good job of recognizing she can’t go back and make up for lost time, but she really wants to be present for her daughter now.”

“There’s damage that I have done to our relationship, with being incarcerated,” Amy said. “I take responsibility for my actions.”

Besides working on her relationship with her daughter, Amy is working on herself with the help of Bert Nash Center Adult Services therapist Emma Kaiser.

“I’ve dealt with a lot of trauma in my life, and Emma has helped me a lot with that, which helps me be a better parent,” Amy said. “I don’t want my daughter to have to go through the emotional things I had to go through."

That’s why I’m glad we got her into counseling when we did.”

Communication between Amy and Rebecca is much improved since they have been coming to the Bert Nash Center.

“They don’t argue nearly as much as they used to,” Sunnie said. “They want to have a relationship with each other, and they don’t want to hold grudges about what happened in the past. They’ve done a lot of really good work together.”

“We used to fight all the time,” Amy said. “I never thought we would be in a position to talk the way that we do now.”

April Patton, Bert Nash Center parent support specialist, has worked with both Amy and Rebecca and she couldn’t be prouder of the progress they have made, individually and as a family.

“They’re like a team,” April said. “It’s been a really hard road, but they have come through it. They’re a special little family.”

From Amy’s incarceration, to being evicted and homeless for a time, to Amy overcoming substance abuse, to now having their own place and building a healthy family dynamic, Amy and Rebecca have come a long way.

“We’re in such a better spot than what we were,” Amy said. “If it wasn’t for the clinicians and the support, I don’t know what would have happened.

"I don’t think we would be where we are at if not for Bert Nash.”