Heartlight Ministries
About Heartlight Ministries
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Heartlight ministries helped us immensely with the very hard decision to send our son. The admissions counselors talked with us several times before we decided to enroll him. They shared so much about the heart of the program that we really felt comfortable with it and knew that we had found a good match for our son??s needs. The application and admission process went so smoothly because of their gracious attitudes and promptness in communicating with us. Heartlight is a first-rate program.
My church leadership team often visits Christian boarding homes and therapy centers and it was on one such trip that I joined them and was introduced to the staff, counselors, parents and leaders at Heartlight Ministries, I was deeply moved by their compassion and by the depth of change seen in the youth who had been through this MInistry. I will be sharing their amazing ministry with my troubled parents as often as it is needed!
After visiting Heartlight Ministries we decided it was the best place for our daughter. Their therapy programs have been a great success and she is no longer struggling as she once did with depression and hurting herself. She has been able to lower her dose on medications and now, a few months after leaving the program she is sharing her story and how Heartlight helped her!
Our adopted twins both started down the wrong road early in their teen life, and while we knew it wasn't anything we had done, we also had no idea how to help them, that is when we met Mark Greggston at a local church event. We then learned about Heartlight Ministries, and soon we went and visited with the staff. We feel like our steps were definitely directed by the Lord. Now, our kids are nearly grown and we have a happy, healthy, and loving family! Our relationships with each other and with Christ have grown enormously!
We spent so much time talking with counselors and staff and teachers while our daughter was at Heartlight that they became like family to us. We never sat and wondered how she was doing. The regular counseling reports and school progress reports kept us current on every step of her progress, and if we had questions the staff was just a quick email or phone call away. We stayed closely involved with all that was going on. It was a blessing to watch our daughter blossom under the care of the staff at Heartlight Ministries.
Heartlight has given us back our precious girl. She was lost in a world I can barely comprehend, but now she is whole again. She is the loving, responsible girl I always dreamed she would become. Even better, she accepts that God has a purpose for her life. God??s dreams for her are much grander than mine.
Our daughter had been through a short-term program before with mixed results. We did a lot of research before we found Heartlight. When our daughter finished the program there, she had a new heart. We are incredibly thankful for the ministry and the caring staff of Heartlight. We believe it is the best among many outstanding Christian programs.
Our son has been home three months now after a year at Heartlight. We are so thankful for everyone who worked with him while he was there. He talks all the time about his mentor and the friends he made and all the fun things he experienced while he was there. The follow-up care has been great. We??ve had a few bumps in the road, but the counselors who have kept in touch and all the resources they??ve offered have made his homecoming much smoother. Thank you for your commitment to families.
Heartlight is a great program for teens and their families but Heartlight is much more...They have many different resources for parents. If you are a parent of a troubled teen, you need to contact them. They have resources that you can use in your own home. You can also attend one of their parent conferences that they hold to try to help keep your teen out of a program. They also can recommend other programs when Heartlight is full or not a suitable fit for your teen. Whatever the circumstance-the care about your situation and will get you help! THANK GOD FOR ALL OF YOU AT HEARTLIGHT.
I am a Heartlight graduate; I finished almost 7 years ago now. Heartlight certainly didn't solve all my problems in the year I spent there, but it gave me the foundation I needed to continue to grow towards adulthood and my future. Most importantly, Heartlight is where God became real to me and I found my faith. Before coming to Heartlight, my life was complete chaos--I was flunking out of my senior year of high school, I couldn't get along with my parents, and was very self-destructive. While at Heartlight, I graduated from high school (I got straight A's my whole time there) and was accepted into several well-respected colleges across the country. The staff was a living example of Christ-like behavior, and through this example faith became a reality to me. During my time I saw many parents pull their children from the program and let them come home, and I am so grateful my parents didn't do that with me. I learned to accept love from my family and others, and today I have strong, although still imperfect (as with every parent-child relationship) relationships with my parents. I continued to go to therapy and take meds after leaving Heartlight, and working towards a healthy life. I didn't "outgrow" my self-destructive behavior; I worked really hard to change, and the work paid off. Heartlight is not at all an overnight solution. It takes a lot of time and effort to change drastically. But my life today is priceless, and I honestly believe I couldn't have done it without a Christian treatment program. I am and forever will be indebted to Heartlight for helping me, in such a huge way, create a life worth living.
Our child was there for 15 months and they did not change. To this day we still have to deal with the problems. After our child left we contacted Heartlight and sought help, they did Nothing! Many kids are 'pulled' from Heartlight by the parents before they complete the program. The success stories are simply kids that outgrow the behavior. This would have happened at home or there. It is a safe and loving environment, but many parents question the effectiveness of the program. There is counseling albiet by very young individuals and the staff in general is quite young. The kids live with Christian staff and the idea is that they will pick up good values by living with them. Not to sure that works. Nepotism is rampant at the staff level, surley being a relative does not qualify you for a job. I mentioned this once and the response was, "Well, they have been in this position for years and I think that qualifies them". No, it just means you have an incompentent person doing the job for years. Gregston had a good thing going when HE did the program, now he spends his time trying to grow his empire at Heartlight. He spends very little time with the kids,too bad.
Overall this program is nothing more than an expensive behavior modification program. The psychological counseling was inexperienced. My child suffered with dysregulated thinking and an inability to establish a life narrative that spanned more than a few days. They didn't know what to do and after 11 months kicked her out and sent us back a kid worse off than when she arrived. And all for about $60K. Make sure a program has the tools to help your child. That they even understand what's wrong. They should have been honest and turned us away at the start due to the lack of training.
My son was at Heartlight 11 months and responded well to all the treatment and graduated with flying colors. He continues to do well now 3 years later. These guys would do anything for anyone. Thanks Heartlight! You saved my son's life...and you saved our family as well. We first came into contact with you at the Families in Crisis Conference, and felt that more was needed for our family. We have nothing but good things to report, and have never met a more dedicated staff who were passionate about our son. We had our doubts many times that he would graduate, but he finally turned a corner and made some great strides. We found that those families who finished the program are doing well. Mark Gregston is a teen expert and he has put together an incredible staff.
My son was at Heartlight for a year and it literally saved his life by breaking his dependence on peers and helped him turn away from a self-destructive lifestyle. The staff and leadership of Heartlight truly care for the kids in their care. We remain interested in and support Heartlight years later, because it is needed for many parents today. I only wish there was one in every state!
Heartlight is safe place for families in crisis. It is a residential treatment facility for teens. I highly recommend Heartlight, they have a great facility that is 2nd only to their caring staff.
