Programs
SAGE is the recognized leader in our field for providing high-quality, evidence-based clinical services for criminal justice and child welfare clients. We have more specialized treatment tracks to allow us to individualize interventions based on a client’s risk of social determinants of health, recidivism, and criminogenic needs. We also provide excellent customer service, maintaining ongoing communication with our referral sources.
SAGE Counseling is licensed by the Arizona Department of Health Services to provide court-ordered misdemeanor domestic violence offender treatment (see the Arizona Revised Statutes 13-3601.01 regarding requirements to complete such a program). We primarily utilize group rather than individual counseling, and offer more than 50 domestic violence offender treatment groups throughout the state (some of which are offered in Spanish). We also have multiple treatment modalities to better serve a variety of clients. Our groups are gender-specific and conducted in a psychoeducational format with a cognitive-behavioral approach. The program particularly emphasizes clients' accountability, compliance with program and probation guidelines, and skill development and rehearsal. We employ structured curricula and methodologies that are designed to increase clients' self-awareness of their controlling and abusive attitudes and behavior, enhance their sense of personal responsibility, and facilitate the integration of positive changes. Our clients' assigned number of sessions follows the ADHS guidelines for licensed court-ordered domestic violence offender treatment programs.
Multiple Domestic Violence Treatment Modalities
In addition to the regular domestic violence offender treatment groups described above, SAGE also provides separate treatment for two other offender groups: those whose victims are non-romantic roommates, family members or children.
Non-Romantic Partner/Family, including Parent Offenders/Child Victims
SAGE Counseling, Inc. offers this group for people who are charged with domestic violence but do not fit the clinical criteria that is typically associated with domestic violence offending in a romantic relationship. For these individuals, more emphasis is placed on recognizing patterns of thinking and behavior that are ineffective and aggressive, as well as teaching and rehearsing coping skills for future potentially problematic situations. These skills include self-calming techniques, communication skills, conflict resolution, emotional literacy, stress management techniques, problem-solving skills, etc. These groups are part of SAGE's ADHS licensed program, and also qualify for the requirements imposed in the Arizona Revised Statutes 13-3601.01.
This program is designed for clients with clinical issues based in aggressiveness, hostility, and poor impulse control, rather than a pattern of power and control within relationships (which are focused on in our Domestic Violence Treatment program). This program is not for clients with a domestic violence conviction and does not fulfill the requirements for completing a licensed domestic violence offender treatment program. The program concentrates on increasing clients' self-awareness of their controlling and aggressive attitudes and behavior, reducing hostile thinking patterns, improving impulse control, enhancing their sense of personal responsibility and pro-social attitudes, and building multiple skills, e.g., conflict-resolution, problem-solving, communication, thought-stopping, and positive self-talk. These groups are co-ed.
SAGE provides a range of Substance Abuse Education and Treatment services. Our services always begin with a comprehensive assessment, and we utilize evidence-based practices, e.g., Cognitive Behavioral Counseling, Motivational Interviewing, Relapse Prevention, and empirically-validated assessment instruments. Our services are provided in our many outpatient clinics in Maricopa County and throughout Arizona., and via telehealth. Our groups range in frequency and intensity depending on individualized treatment need. We offer early intervention, relapse prevention, and intensive programming that can range from once to three times per week. We also offer DUI services, and we offer eight and sixteen-hour substance abuse education programs.
SAGE provides Family Support, Preservation and Reunification Services, also known as the In Home Services Program that assists in supporting and enhancing the family unit, and preserving and reunifying the family through a continuum of family centered services that are comprehensive, coordinated, community based, accessible and culturally responsive. Services are provided in the child’s current and transitional placement, or in Arizona Department of Child Safety offices. Services are referral driven and are for children and their families who are receiving services due to a report of child abuse or neglect, or for children and families who have a potential risk of abuse or neglect. The focus of this service is to improve the safety and well-being of families, enhance family functioning, increase competence in parenting abilities, foster a sense of self-reliance, reduce risk factors, increase protective factors and stabilize families.
This service provides goal oriented, time limited (usually 60-120 days), in home crisis and supportive intervention specifically tailored to the family’s needs. The services may include: parent education, counseling, communication skills, domestic violence intervention and/or education, behavioral management/modification, home management skills, and development of linkages to family resources.
There are three main components:
- Intensive Family Preservation – to provide crisis oriented activities where conditions represent a threat to child safety and whose children are at significant risk of out-of-home placement due to abuse and/or neglect in order to allow those children to safely remain in their home.
- Moderate Level – to provide services where conditions represent no safety threat, but to a high to moderate risk of abuse and/or neglect, in order to allow those children to safely remain in their home.
- Family Reunification and Placement Stabilization – to safely expedite the return of children who are in out of home placement or in voluntary foster care back to their family.
SAGE is licensed by the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) to provide all three misdemeanor DUI services: Screening, Level II Education, and Level I Treatment. Our Level II Education groups are typically held on the weekends, and we offer multiple Level I Treatment groups per week throughout our clinics.
This program is grounded in the idea that our feelings and behaviors are directed by our thoughts more than by external factors, such as people, situations, or events. The benefit of this understanding is that we can change the way we think to change the way we feel and act, even if the external situation does not change. This approach is based on the scientifically supported perspective that most emotional and behavioral reactions are learned. Therefore, the goal of counseling is to help clients identify their problematic beliefs and cognitive sets and “unlearn” their unwanted reactions (including criminal behavior) while learning new ways of responding. SAGE teaches clients about the effects of their current decision-making and problem-solving styles in order to improve them and develop healthy lives. This group is designed to instill positive values, increase empathy, promote positive changes, and enhance pro-social behavior. In order to help clients experience greater success as they increase their self-awareness and gain understanding of the process of change, we also teach them the Stages of Change Model.
In our outpatient programs, individual counseling is an option, as is group counseling. The specific modality or modalities utilized are based on clinical needs and the client’s specific situation. We focus on short-term stabilization and skills building to support clients through treatment.
Parenting counseling and education groups assist clients in enhancing their current skills, as well as developing and rehearsing new ones. Appropriate strategies for dealing with difficult parenting situations are addressed, as well as positive communication skills, appropriate use of discipline, parents’ self-care, boundary setting, anger management, developmental stages of childhood/adolescence, self-esteem, and family conflict management.