A Place of Hope returns to emotional trauma training roots
DANIEL CLIFTON • PICAYUNE EDITOR
MARBLE FALLS — After five years of meeting the physical needs of hurting Highland Lakes residents, A Place Of Hope has refocused its purpose, now centering on the director’s initial calling: emotional trauma teaching and support.
“Our mission is to link hurting people to a healing God. We do that by being an emotional trauma training center,” said Pat Hancock, the executive director and founder. “This is the mission I started on years ago, but then God called me to build the (health) clinic.”
The health clinic provided care for residents who couldn’t afford it otherwise. That clinic opened in April 2010 on Mormon Mill Road. But after five years, Hancock said she heard God pulling her back to her initial calling of emotional trauma support.
Before coming to Marble Falls and opening a Place of Hope, Hancock ran Hope for the Wounded Heart in East Texas. Like A Place of Hope’s new mission, the program was an emotional trauma teaching center.
Now Hancock and A Place of Hope’s board is emphasizing that mission at the Marble Falls center. The office relocated to 700 RR 1431 to start its new priority.
Hancock envisioned A Place of Hope as not a counseling center but a place people can develop and learn coping skills for all types of life’s problems and issues.
“We teach people healthy coping skills. You’re here,” Hancock said referring to a person’s current life situation, “and you want to get there, but you don’t have the healthy coping skills to get there. Instead, you may come from a dysfunctional setting, so you’re used to certain survivor skills. Now, they may get you through the tough spot, but it may not be to the place you want to get.”
In fact, some people turn to alcohol, drugs or other vices to “cope” with the situation. Hancock said most people just don’t learn good emotional trauma coping skills.
“So, what we try to do is help them get more tools in their tool box,” she said.
Over the years of leading emotional trauma training, Hancock has developed her own tool box of teaching tools to help people. It’s through A Place of Hope that she plans to share those skills with others.
But it’s not just about helping people and letting them go. Instead, Hancock wants to create “encouragers” who go back out into their communities and help more people.
“Not everybody can come in here, so encouragers can meet with people in their own communities,” Hancock said.
People who want to become encouragers don’t need to have suffered an emotional or other trauma but just have a desire to learn these skills and a heart to help others.
Some of the services A Place of Hope provides include trauma and abuse questionnaires; unhealthy adult coping/survival skills ladder to freedom; healthy adult coping skills; life balance; path to wellness; personality questionnaires; healing thoughts; dream and goal setting; and setting boundaries.
Classes give individuals a place to learn new skills as well as experience a loving and accepting atmosphere. Hancock said no matter what a person expresses or how hurt he or she may feel, the rest of the class rallies around that person and lifts him or her up.
“The class just comes and love on them,” she said.
And that’s what Hancock wants to show — God’s love for each person, no matter how unloveable they may think they are for whatever reason.
“In the end, it’s God’s love that makes us whole,” she said.
Hancock said she hopes to get the first classes started about May 1. Go to www.aplaceofhope-usa.org for more information. Organizers are holding an open house at the new facility 11 a.m.- 2 p.m. April 23 with barbecue and live music by John Arthur Martinez.
The Tee Off for Hope golf tournament benefitting A Place of Hope is May 9 at Lighthouse Country Club, 118 Club Circle in Kingsland. Registration is $80 per player. Go to www.lighthousecountryclub.com to register. Sponsorships are also available.
daniel@thepicayune.com