School of Psychology

Family Learning Program (FLP)

The Family Learning Program (FLP) is an outpatient program dedicated to providing best practice psychological services to improve the lives of children and adolescents who have experienced sexual abuse and their siblings and non-offending caregivers. Our services are completely grant-funded and are provided at no cost to the families we serve. FLP is one of only 14 Department of Health sponsored Sexual Abuse Treatment Programs (SATPs) within the state of Florida.

Our Mission

Our Mission Statement:  

"The Family Learning Program is dedicated to providing best practice psychological services to improve the lives of children, adolescents and families who have experienced neglect and/or abuse."

The mission of the Family Learning Program is to provide best practice evaluation and treatment services for child and adolescent victims, their siblings, and their non-offending caregivers to promote healthy coping and reduce risk of re-victimization.

FLP offers treatment through a group modality at the South County location (at The Scott Center for Autism Treatment), at Devereux Therapeutic Group Home and at Devereux Residential Treatment Center in Viera. Individual, family, or couples therapy may be offered as needed. In addition to the Devereux services, the following South County groups correspond to different ages and family roles:

Vision And Values

The Family Learning Program's vision is to decrease child maltreatment in Brevard County through the following four core values:

Community Awareness: We believe that increasing community awareness of child sexual abuse and other forms of child maltreatment reduces the stigma associated with abuse and its treatment, prevents child abuse through public education and increases access to treatment and services for victims and families.

Intervention: We believe that empirically supported and evidence-based intervention is effective in improving victim and family coping following abuse, reducing related negative effects and symptoms, and reducing risk of re-victimization.

Collaboration: We believe that active collaboration with community partners and other involved treatment and service providers is imperative to fully support victims and families and for effective delivery of sexual abuse treatment.

Prevention: We believe that preventing child sexual abuse and other forms of maltreatment is preferable to treating children and families to avoid the significant negative effects of abuse on the child and family. We promote community awareness in an effort to prevent new occurrences of child abuse and implement interventions and collaboration to prevent additional occurrences in children who have already experienced child sexual abuse or another form of child maltreatment.

Evaluation and Treatment

FLP provides psychological evaluation and evidence based treatment, including Trauma Focused-Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT). Our therapists are doctoral clinical psychology trainees, most of whom have master's degrees, receive specialized training in sexual abuse and trauma evaluation and treatment and provide services under the clinical supervision of a licensed clinical psychologist.

Research

Sexual abuse research is completed by Family Learning Program students through the FLP Research Team utilizing the FLP Research Database, examining a range of abuse and trauma topics and variables .