Improving Child Mental Health With Skills and Community Support With Jaime Monaco and Rivka Benjamin

Jaime Monaco, LCPC, and Rivka Benjamin, LCSW, are Co-founders and Therapists at Enso Wellness Centers in Northbrook, a mental health program specializing in partial hospitalization (PHP) and intensive outpatient (IOP) care for children and adolescents. Under their leadership, Enso Wellness has become known for its collaborative, wraparound approach involving families, schools, and providers. Jaime has over a decade of experience in CBT, SPACE, parent coaching, and behavioral interventions, while Rivka began her career as a school-based mental health counselor.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[03:00] Rivka Benjamin shares the inspiration behind Enso Wellness and how it addresses the critical care gap
[05:07] The ages Enso Wellness serves and the insurance plans it covers
[06:49] How real-life triggers are addressed in therapy rather than avoided
[09:15] Why collaboration with schools ensures lasting skills for kids
[11:17] How temperature changes help calm anxious children quickly
[16:34] Step-by-step grounding techniques parents can use at home
[20:28] Ways aggressive behaviors can be safely managed and transformed
[28:33] Why foundational skills beat advanced therapy for young kids
[34:57] Actionable advice to stop unhelpful parental accommodations

In this episode…

When a child is overwhelmed, it can feel like the whole family is holding its breath. Behaviors that look confusing on the surface often reflect moments when kids simply don’t have the right tools yet. What does it take to help them feel capable again?

The answer, according to child therapists Jaime Monaco and Rivka Benjamin, starts with practical skills kids can use in the moments when they feel anxious, frustrated, or out of control. They explain that progress isn’t built in a quiet office but in everyday situations that trigger stress. For Jaime, exposing kids to those real-life challenges in a safe environment reveals what skills they actually need, not just the ones they can recite. Rivka believes that true growth comes from collaborative support where therapists, parents, and schools all reinforce the same expectations. With the right support, meaningful change is possible.

In this episode of The Coping Podcast, Dr. Leigh Weisz is joined by Jaime Monaco, LCPC, and Rivka Benjamin, LCSW, Co-founders of Enso Wellness Centers, to discuss helping kids build skills that truly work in real-life situations. They explore how to identify triggers, practice coping tools through exposure, and reduce unhelpful accommodations at home. Jaime and Rivka also give advice on collaborating effectively with schools and providers.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Quotable Moments:

“We make sure that we’re collaborating with school and outpatient providers to really get that feedback.”
“We operationally teach them to use them in the situations that are triggering them as well.”
“My biggest advice to parents would be to wait it out. Do not break the expectations when your therapist is telling you specific steps.”
“That’s why we’re so big on collaborating; it takes a village. They need everybody.”
“We pride ourselves in being a warm, safe space in general, you know, our building is colorful.”

Action Steps:

Teach kids to recognize early warning signs: Helping children notice what anxiety or frustration feels like in their bodies allows them to use coping skills before emotions escalate.
Practice coping strategies in real-life moments: Using skills during the actual trigger builds confidence and ensures the strategies work outside the therapy room.
Reduce unhelpful accommodations gradually: Step-by-step removal of avoidance behaviors strengthens resilience and reduces long-term anxiety.
Coordinate closely with schools and providers: Consistent expectations across environments help kids generalize their skills and maintain progress after discharge.
Coach parents to co-regulate effectively: When parents model calm support instead of jumping into “therapist mode,” children feel safer and learn to manage emotions more independently.

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by Coping Partners.

Coping Partners is a mental health practice dedicated to helping children, adolescents, and adults manage various challenges including anxiety, divorce, behavioral issues, relationship problems and much more in the Chicago suburbs.

Our practitioners are devoted to building on our clients’ strengths and bolstering weaknesses.

To gain insight and tools for getting unstuck check out our website at CopingPartners.com, email us at support@copingpartnersgroup.com.

Episode Transcript

Intro: 00:01

Welcome to The Coping Podcast, where we share strategies for coping with the stressors of life, especially the difficulties of parenting. And here is your host, Dr. Leigh Weisz.

Dr. Leigh Weisz: 00:15

This is Dr. Leigh Weisz. I am the host of The Coping Podcast, where I feature top experts on topics like raising healthy children, parenting, and so much more. Past guests include Dr. Doug Bolton, Dr. Eli Lebowitz, clinicians Ben Kessler, Michelle Winterstein, Dr. Aryn Froum and many more. Just a quick disclaimer. The information provided is for educational and informational purposes only.

This is not intended to provide mental health treatment and does not constitute a client therapist relationship. The information provided is not a replacement for being assessed and evaluated by a licensed professional, and is not intended to replace mental health or medical advice. This episode is brought to you by Coping Partners. Coping Partners is a mental health practice in the Chicago suburbs dedicated to helping children, adolescents and adults. We help manage various challenges including anxiety, divorce, behavioral issues, relationship problems, and much more.

Please check out more episodes of our podcast and our website at CopingPartners.com and you can contact us with any questions you have. Before we dive into today’s topic, I wanted to introduce today’s guests, Jaime Monaco and Rivka Benjamin, who are the founders of Enso Wellness in Northbrook. Jaime is a dedicated child and adolescent therapist with over a decade of experience in mental health care. She specializes in CBT space, parent coaching, and behavioral interventions.

Jaime is passionate about helping kids build resilience through collaborative wraparound support, and works closely with families, schools and providers to create lasting change. Rivka brings extensive experience working with children and adolescents across a wide range of challenges. Having a background in schools and mental health, she understands the unique intersection of academic, social and emotional needs. As a mom of three, Rivka blends clinical expertise with real world parenting wisdom. Known for her warmth, humor, and unwavering dedication, she creates a space where growth feels not only possible but achievable.

So today, we will be learning about a wonderful program in our community in Northbrook, and also talking more generally about what kids need when they’re struggling. What types of interventions help most in these programs, and how parents can support the work that’s being done. So thank you both so much for being here.

Jaime Monaco, LCPC: 02:47

Thank you for having us. We’re excited.

Dr. Leigh Weisz: 02:50

So I’m going to ask you to tell us a little bit about what inspired you both to start this program, and what gap did you see in mental health care that you really wanted to fill.

Rivka Benjamin, LCSW: 03:00

Yeah. So what inspired us is, first of all, both of us have a history, a history in PHP, levels of care and outpatient levels of care. And we both have a passion to help the children and adolescents, especially seeing post-Covid the rise in all of these challenges, interacting with different people in the community and the parents and the gaps we were really looking to fill were just making sure that the the treatment they are getting, especially when they’re in crisis mode, is really long lasting. So, you know, the last thing we want to see is a parent in crisis getting their hopes up. They’re back in school and then they’re back in PHP a couple months later.

So a lot of what you’ll hear from us is the way we design the program is to make sure that it’s wraparound. We’re collaborating with each and every person involved in the child’s life to and giving them the skills that they can use in different settings, different situations, and actually have it last longer than a couple of months.

Jaime Monaco, LCPC: 03:59

Yeah. So. And Rivka says this all the time. We also saw a lot of waitlists. So there was a there’s still a need with how many PHP and IOP programs there are.

We just didn’t we hated seeing kids sitting on waitlists. So on top of that, like we just wanted to make sure no child, no family was left on a waitlist while they’re struggling. Because, you know, the times when you need PHP are are pretty hard.

Dr. Leigh Weisz: 04:20

Absolutely. No, that’s very true. And as the, you know, as the referral person, right. When kids are really in crisis, we do hear a lot of kids going to PHP programs, you know, getting kind of, you know, released back into the school setting and then having to return. So what you shared, Rivka really spoke to me that it is hard.

Of course, the parents are eager to get their kids back into school and back into kind of like real life. And yet you want to make sure that they’re going to be set up for success. Yeah. So tell us a little bit more about the logistics, just again, for more of the local community like, you know what? What networks are you guys in network for in terms of insurance?

What ages do you serve? Just a little a little bit.

Jaime Monaco, LCPC: 05:07

Yeah, we are. So we’re a partial hospitalization program and an intensive outpatient program. We take kids eight through 18. We will take as young as six case by case just depending on we. So we split our groups into three different age groups children, teens, tweens and teens.

If our little kids group is more like nine, ten year olds, you know, we’ll we’ll kind of staff the cases of a six, seven year old. But sometimes it’s a little difficult just depending on maturity and how much they obtain from the group. So but we do take six through 18. If they’re 18, they still have to be in high school. Okay.

Our PHP program runs Monday through Friday 9 to 2. Our intensive outpatient program is our after school program that runs Monday through Thursday. And that’s 315 to 6. We are in network with Blue Cross, Blue Shield, Aetna, Cigna and Optum. So the four big ones.

Dr. Leigh Weisz: 06:02

That’s amazing. Okay. And again that’s that’s huge. Yeah. So Rivka I’m going to ask you to tell us a little bit more about what you were kind of alluding to in terms of making sure they’re really prepared for success in the real world.

In my view, again, I’ve never truthfully worked in a PHP or IOP program, so I kind of give you guys a lot of credit. It’s hard work, it’s very intensive, but I always think about that environment as being like a nice, warm, safe bubble because the kids are really struggling and again, not able to continue in their school or home setting without much more support. So how do you sort of like prepare them while keeping them in this little cozy bubble?

Rivka Benjamin, LCSW: 06:49

Yeah, that’s a good question. We do. You know, we pride ourselves in being a warm, safe space in general. You know, our our building, we’re very colorful. We always have smiles on our faces.

Our staff know all the children, all the parents. However, we try not to be too soft, too warm. So the way we handle it is, you know, once they’re, you know, engaged in programming or not, maybe just a little bit engaged in programming, comfortable with the staff. So I would say maximum two, three days because we do want them to get back. We do begin to expose them to their triggers in house.

So what we’re talking about is let’s say a child is really adverse to writing. They cannot handle writing. That’s when their explosions come out at school. We will begin to introduce them slowly, but they will begin to write 100% in the school group, and we will expose them and see how they react so we can see what skills do they need, what skills do they have that are not working? And by the time they get back to school, they’ve been exposed to their triggers full time.

In a group of people with a teacher, we have a teacher who runs the school group and they have learned how to manage it. So I guess you can add if you want to. So we’re basically trying to expose them as much as we can here, see what’s going on and then send them back. Our biggest concern is the bubble. Are they coming here getting away with all the schoolwork kind of being like, yeah, I’ll use deep breathing.

See you later. And moving on. So we really want to make sure that they can actually use it operationally. And we’re pretty stubborn. So we want to make sure they can actually use it, get through it before we try to expose them back into school.

Jaime Monaco, LCPC: 08:28

Right.

Dr. Leigh Weisz: 08:29

I love that because we do see some kids again, historically, not not from Enso, but you know, they come back with these really cute like little infographics. And they’ve memorized these again, these strategies. Right. Often CBT or DBT strategies which we’ll get into some of the meat of what you guys work on with the kids. But but the question is can they use it.

Right. Can they use it when they’re flooded Emotionally, it sounds like what you’re saying is maybe not day one. You want them to orient to the program, and you do want them to feel comfortable, because I’m sure it’s a big shock to one of these programs. But you don’t wait too long. It sounds like to dip their toe in in what triggers them, and so that you can not only provide a skill hypothetically, but really in in vivo.

Jaime Monaco, LCPC: 09:15

Right. We and we definitely. So one of the big pieces too is a lot of kids will come in and be like, this is what triggers me. This is what this is where I feel the most stressed or overwhelmed. And then we’ll talk to schools and they’ll be like, well, actually, yeah, writing triggers them.

The whole showing the whole steps for math problems triggers them where they will kind of withhold that information, whether they have insight into it or not. Right. But we make sure that we’re collaborating with school and outpatient providers to really get that feedback. So we’re able to intentionally expose them to the triggers and then even go a step further. Kids are very smart as we’re teaching the DVT and CBT skills in groups.

You know, they’ll memorize them. They’ll be like, oh, this is what I’ve learned. This is what works. So as we’re exposing, you know, if they’ve identified temperature change in DBT as a skill, we’ll make sure when they’re having, you know, the anxiety attack, any external behaviors after being exposed to the triggers, encouraging them to use those skills and making sure that they’re actually able to implement those skills in programming prior to sending them back to school, then going even a step deeper when they return back to school. We kind of set up school and the kiddo to make sure that if temperature change, having an ice pack, a warm whatever that may be, making sure that they have those things on them and know how to use them in that environment.

So they’re not I mean, a lot of times they’ll memorize all of these skills and program, go back to school and they’re like, oh, wait, I, I don’t think I put two and two together that my teacher isn’t going to run down to the cafeteria and get a bag of ice. So we make sure that they have, like breakable ice packs. The skills that they’re learning here, we operationally teach them to use them in the situations that are triggering them as well.

Dr. Leigh Weisz: 10:58

I love that. Can you? Okay, so for people who are not as familiar with, you know, some of these strategies, can you break down when you talk about temperature change as a an intervention. Like what? What is helpful about that kind of like really simplify it.

And when would a kiddo need to use this kind of skill.

Jaime Monaco, LCPC: 11:17

So temperature change it’s often a very popular one. It comes from the DBT skill tip. So there’s 3 or 4. Sometimes they do tip sometimes they do tip. But it’s temperature change intense exercise progressive muscle relaxation or paced breathing.

And so temperature change is a big one. Tips a big one. Because I think it’s just easy kind of to remember for the kiddos when they learn it here.

Dr. Leigh Weisz: 11:38

But acronyms.

Jaime Monaco, LCPC: 11:40

And so when they’re like oh tip helps. I’m like right. But like what part of tip helps because it’s actually 3 or 4 coping skills. So and you can use this in multiple different ways. You can use a frozen orange where they can dig their hands into it.

You can use an ice pack. It brings them back to the moment. It’s used for mindfulness grounding. If they’re having a panic attack, it kind of shocks them out of their thoughts and brings them back into the moment where they’re focusing then on the cold temperature versus whatever intense feeling that they’re experiencing at the time of, you know, stressful situations.

Dr. Leigh Weisz: 12:12

So can you give us an example of a kiddo in your program who was struggling with XYZ? You’ll tell us what and kind of like what was an intervention that you taught them and how did you operationalize? If I’m using that word correctly, where how it was going to, you know, be implemented in the school setting when they returned? I’m using school, but it could be home or school, of course.

Jaime Monaco, LCPC: 12:34

Okay, I have two examples, but do you want to. Okay, so there’s two kiddos. And again I’m going to use temperature changes because that’s a big one.

Dr. Leigh Weisz: 12:41

And these are not real names. Everybody who is listening of course. But I want to give you a sense of the work. Go ahead.

Jaime Monaco, LCPC: 12:47

There was a kiddo who would experience severe anxiety, shortness of breath, could not concentrate, a lot of times would pace. Was leaving the classroom often if there was anxiety, you know, loud noises, anything that she perceived as, you know, negative talk from teachers or students. But she we would get her these ice packs that she would use when she would start to feel the onset of her warning signs. So we always teach the kiddos, you can’t use it when you’re at a ten. You’re already too escalated.

When you’re at a ten, you have to start using it. When you start to feel the shortness of breath, start to feel the hotness or the, you know, whatever your warning signs are when it comes to anxiety or externalizing behaviors. And so we really coached her when she was having anxiety. You know, we would expose her to certain things in school that would make her anxiety rise, and she would practice using it in the classroom here. Then we would talk about, okay, we have ice bags here, right?

What are you going to use at school? We would. We bought her a pack. Parents bought her a pack of breakable ice packs. So when she was in her classroom, she had a breakable ice pack at her desk, so she would break it, and then she would use it, you know, on the onset of these warning signs.

And it would help her from escalating all the way to a panic attack because she would, you know, focus on the coldness, calm herself down, use breathing. So that’s one piece. And like.

Dr. Leigh Weisz: 14:11

It sounds like a kind of subtle, like if she could almost hide it under her desk. Okay.

Jaime Monaco, LCPC: 14:15

Right. Because some kids, some do, but some kids don’t really like standing out with their anxiety or mental health struggles at school. And so, yeah, we we tend to, you know, ask like, do you feel comfortable with pulling this out at school? So there’s a lot of different pieces that go into making sure that the skills transfer to the environments. Another example would be if the same kiddo I’ll get into the the deep breathing one in a second.

But if the same kiddo identified temperature change as a way to alleviate anxiety, like you can’t use that in dance or on the soccer field, right? You can’t be like, I need an ice pack. You know, I’m on the field playing. So it’s like, what can you do in those moments that will help ground you when you’re experiencing intense emotions, when you don’t have access to tangible items. So then we’ll talk about, you know, distracting 5432, one grounding, picking a color and making sure that you’re looking for the color instead of thinking about whatever is making you anxious.

So we kind of play out all of these different scenarios and the kiddos life, and make sure that the coping skills that they are identifying can be used in certain situations.

Dr. Leigh Weisz: 15:22

I love that it’s not like a classroom and they’re passing the test and then they’re never using this information.

Rivka Benjamin, LCSW: 15:27

Yeah. Good luck. Yeah. And some people do. Some things will do with the younger kids. Like I’m thinking of a specific nine year old is have them decide sometimes they’ll name the skill themselves. So let’s say the stop skill is a whole great acronym. But he just took it as like, I need to stop, put my head down for a minute and then move on. Very externalised behavioral child.

So for him, that was what worked for him. He called it the stop skill. Was it exactly the four steps? No, but he knew that for himself. I will put my head down for a minute and then move on.

So I think it’s helpful for them to, like, be able to, like, figure out what works for them, what they want to call it.

Dr. Leigh Weisz: 16:03

Right. It’s empowering too, if they’re able to name it for themselves. I feel like that means something to them, right? Some of some of the names are a little bit, you know, long.

Jaime Monaco: 16:12

Yeah. Very long. Yeah. Sometimes the kiddos.

Dr. Leigh Weisz: 16:16

Can you go back, Jaime, before. I just don’t want to get too far ahead. Five. Four. Three.

Two. One. When you’re mentioning these skills, just again for the parents listening, what what does that look like. Because I’m sure some of the parents are going to be like, oh, I can use that before Johnny melts down. You know, tonight at home.

Like what would be an example of a five, 4321.

Jaime Monaco, LCPC: 16:34

Yeah. So 54321. It’s like five things you see four things you can touch, three things that you can smell.

Dr. Leigh Weisz: 16:43

Feel Probably everyone does it a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s.

Jaime Monaco, LCPC: 16:49

It’s basically. Just that you’re taking in the senses, bringing in the environments, and you’re getting out of what’s going on in, in.

Dr. Leigh Weisz: 16:56

Yeah. I was. Going to say I’m sure there’s a million iterations of it, but the concept of like, okay, this person is dysregulated this kiddo physiologically. And so it sounds like you’re like trying to literally distract in a way to something, you know, I feel this chair underneath.

And it feels squishy or it feels hard or, you know, the air is cool. See a red, you know, whatever picture over there. So something to get them out of their inside world or grounded, I love that.

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