A Message From Our President and CEO Rebecca Kiesow-Knudsen
The start of this school year is on track to be dramatically different from the situation Amanda Dressler found herself in one year ago.
Her son, Ryker, had just turned 11 and was beginning fifth grade when she got the kind of call from school that no parent wants.
“They told me Ryker had brought a knife to school, and I needed to come get him,” Amanda says. “He didn’t do it with an intent to hurt anybody, but he was struggling.” It was the culmination of multiple challenges for the boy over the past couple of years.
His father had died. He and Amanda had moved. He started a new school the year prior. “He had had a really rough go of it, and it was a mess, but I thought we had everything fixed,” Amanda says. “Then school started and I got that call and I’m like, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
School leaders suspended Ryker for 10 days and also made a connection for the family that would make all the difference: the LSS CARES Wraparound program, which introduced Amanda to program manager Sage Stansell.
“She came to my house, listened to our story and explained the program,” Amanda says. “We met regularly and we would sit and talk and Ryker participated. She totally was a connector.”
That’s the goal of the CARES Wraparound program, which started in 2021 through a grant from Lutheran Services of America and is administered locally by LSS of South Dakota at no cost to families.
“Wraparound gives us the flexibility to truly meet families where they’re at,” Sage says. “We approach each situation individually and want to know their needs and how we can connect them to the community and build their confidence as a family.”
The overarching goal is a model that stabilizes youth in their homes, often avoiding involvement with child protective services
or residential mental health treatment, as well as heading off involvement with the juvenile justice system.
“The program comes as a surprise to many people,” Sage says. “Schools are our top referral source, and we often hear from
counselors and social workers. Sometimes families come across us online. We want families to know we’re accessible. We’re
a place to go when they don’t know where to go. And we encourage them to reach out if they think it could be helpful.”
Families typically work with the program less than nine months, accessing a broad range of services and developing a strategic
plan for how to work together to meet their needs and goals.
“We’re helping them do support planning, look at how to identify triggers or avoid crisis situations, and we’re equipping them with skills and tools to get through the most challenging moments,” Sage says.
For the Dresslers, Sage connected the family with counseling, provided new healthy ways for them to interact and linked them to resources to assist with Ryker’s ADHD diagnosis.
But then came the biggest link of all: a visit to The Siouxer indoor skate park and shop.
“Ryker had mentioned skateboarding, and Sage was able to get us a meeting there,” Amanda says. “We went one night after work, and he got individual one-on-one time and had a lot of fun.”
It led to a summer skateboarding program. Amanda’s fiancée took Ryker to buy a custom skateboard. The family went to the skate park every weekend and Ryker began to learn.
“He absolutely loved it and loved the guy that taught him how to skateboard,” Amanda says. “Sage even came and saw Ryker do his last day at the skate park.”
The activity for Ryker “was huge,” Sage says. “Watching him interact with his teacher and the owner of the skate park means a lot. Now they have the additional support and knowledge that there’s someone else out there who can understand and work with him, and that’s significant.”
As her son starts middle school this year, life feels back on track, Amanda says, and she has learned some new parenting skills as well.
“He’s a lot different. We’re going to all the open houses, so he knows who he’s going to school with, and he and I have a good relationship today,” she says. “I validate his feelings. I listen to him. He may not always get what he wants, but he can feel seen and heard.”
Sage sees a clear difference, too.
“The growth in them was so apparent over the course of nine or 10 months. Our conversations have helped Amanda change her perspective on her role,” she says. “It’s not like she began parenting differently, but there was growth in her confidence. We know he’s a good kid and things will be okay, and that was impactful for me as someone who believes in this work to see the difference it can make.”
Amanda encourages other families to learn more about what the LSS CARES Wraparound program can offer their unique situations.
And—in the ultimate connection—working through LSS provided full-circle support for her. The organization that was there for her as a baby became her resource as a mother.
“I’m adopted through LSS,” Amanda says. “And so I knew of LSS, but I thought they were adoptions only. I didn’t know they had these other programs at all. I didn’t know they could help families like ours. Nothing. And what I learned is not only do they have these programs but there are so many families just like ours that can benefit from them.”
To learn more about the LSS CARES Wraparound program, visit here: Wraparound.LssSD.org
