Penfield Children’s Center

BEHAVIOR CLINIC

Mental Health Clinic

The Behavior Clinic is an outpatient mental health clinic that provides services to children up to 6 years of age and their caregiver to address behavioral and emotional concerns. The Behavior Clinic program provides in-home therapy services to children and their caregivers who live in Milwaukee and Waukesha counties.

Behavioral & Emotional Concerns:

Temper Tantrums

Sleep problems

Hyperactivity

Aggression

Trouble with separation

Destructive behaviors

Not
listening 

Difficulties
with relationships

Attachment
concerns

Therapy and Support

The Behavior Clinic provides therapy and support to young children who have experienced a traumatic or stressful event. The Behavior Clinic works with both the child and the caregiver to promote safety, development of copying skills, and promote healing after a traumatic/stressful event has occurred.

Children who have experience trauma may express symptoms including:

Sleep problems
or nightmares

Lack of interest in play / Isolation / Avoidance

Play
reenactment

Separation anxiety or clinging behaviors

Blank
stares

Difficulty
regulating emotions

Hyperactivity / Short-attention span / Impulsivity

Increase in
challenging behaviors

Sexualized
behaviors

Behavior Clinic Referral

Complete the form below and our team will reach out for a consultation.

Services are available in both English and Spanish languages. Behavior Clinic services are not appropriate for children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder or over the age of six.

Or call us at: 414-345-6351

Name

What Parents & Caregivers Can Gain

Parents and caregivers work with Behavior Clinic to learn new responses to their child’s challenging behaviors or emotional concerns, improve communication with their child, gain an understanding of why concerns may be happening, and to increase their patience in responding to their child.

How the Program Works

Location

Behavior Clinic provides in-home or telehealth options for both Milwaukee and Waukesha counties in Wisconsin. In-home means a therapist would come to your home and work with your child in their natural environment. Telehealth can be conducted through video call on an electronic device using a secure platform. We are unable to provide services in the childcare or school settings.

Frequency & Length

Appointments are scheduled to happen weekly for 1 hour each time and the program lasts on average 8-15 weeks. Available appointment start times are between 7:30 a.m .– 3:00 p.m.

Participation

Our program is most effective when we have both the child and a parent or caregiver participating in every appointment, so we require both to attend each week. You are the person responding to your child’s behaviors the majority of the time, so our program centers around giving you effective response strategies to lead to improvement. Your child will need to be present, which may mean pulling them out of childcare or school for the appointment time.

What Appointments
Will Be Like

The first appointments will be an evaluation, where the therapist will have you sign paperwork, ask you detailed questions about your child and their concerns, and will have you respond to surveys to determine severity of concerns. Immediately after the evaluation, you will begin meeting for weekly treatment appointments. During these appointments, you and your child will meet with a therapist and work on response strategies to target your concerns. The therapist will interact with both you and your child, and create a plan that fits into your family’s life and environment. You will be given strategies to work on between appointments.

Benefits of working with Behavior Clinic

Evidence Based Treatment Model

The treatment model used at Behavior Clinic, Early Pathways, has been created through research in partnership with Marquette University since 2003 in Milwaukee county Wisconsin. We continue to do research on our program to make sure we are providing effective services to families.

Effective Treatment

The research we do at our clinic has shown that our program is effective at improving behavioral and emotional concerns. One of the biggest predictors of improvement is the parent or caregiver’s consistent participation in the program and using the strategies outside of the appointments.

Frequently Asked Questions

No! Our program works with children on a wide variety of concerns, including behaviors that are considered typical for their age. Parents and caregivers who are looking for new ways to respond to typical behaviors of early childhood are welcome to enroll.

Our program works with both the parent or caregiver and the child. We have found that this is the best way to see progress toward goals. Having a parent or caregiver participate will mean that what we work on in treatment will be able to be carried into the child’s daily life and environment outside of our appointments.

Unfortunately, our program is not an effective resource for Autism screenings or treatment. That’s because children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder usually need more frequent and specialized services that our clinic is not trained to provide. 

You can find Autism evaluation and treatment resources here: https://www.assew.org/resource-guide/

Our program does not prescribe or manage medication. Behavior Clinic aims to target behaviors by changing adult responses to behaviors and providing age-appropriate skills for children. If your child is on medication, we will encourage you to continue to work with the prescribing provider while you participate in our program. If you are interested in medication for your child, we will encourage you to speak to their primary care provider about it.

Behavior Clinic Referral

Complete the form below and our team will reach out for a consultation.

Services are available in both English and Spanish languages. Behavior Clinic services are not appropriate for children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder or over the age of six

Or call us at: 414-345-6351

Name