Synergy Behavioral Health helps clients get better together

Synergy Behavioral Health opened on Lewes's East Savannah Road this spring, aiming its focus on individual progress through the performance of healthcare professionals aligned as a team.

To Synergy owner Peggy Gaestel, a licensed clinical social worker, the idea behind her approach is to interweave intervention strategies to provide a high level of care for each individual client.

"The focus here is on bringing the highest-quality treatment and support to children, families and individuals," Gaestel said. "This is a place for individuals experiencing any type of stress to avoid having daily struggles affect their functioning."

Synergy Behavioral Health provides specialized treatment for parent-child conflict, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, disruptions in attachment and bonding, victims of trauma, depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and relationship concerns.

The owner is certified in trauma studies, and she said much of the work at Synergy Behavioral Health is focused on building resilience through mind-body activities.

This summer, Gaestel introduced summer camps at Synergy, creating safe environments for positive reinforcement, with groups ranging from four to eight students, she said.

She has already started a new dharma kids summer camp that incorporates body movement and yogic techniques with trained Groove Yoga-certified facilitators.  Gaestel said she plans to run this camp through summer and after school to help clients reinforce positive progress through dance, crafts and healthful living.

"We focus on helping kids identify their purpose in life and gifts based on the yogic philosophy of recognizing chakras," Gaestel said. "Then, through movement, dance, yoga, sound and journaling, each day we focus on a different chakra and how to field positive energy into it."

Helping children experience positive mind and body control translates into being able to regulate and bring awareness to behaviors, she said. A camp for adolescent girls runs Saturday mornings at the behavioral health center.

Yet another summer camp at Synergy is based around theatrical training. This camp, especially, is packed with opportunities for positive reinforcement and character development,Gaestel said.

Campers are not necessarily tied to the existing client base for counseling at Synergy; instead, the owner hopes to reach out to the general community and provide opportunities for youth to develop creativity, enhance resilience and neuroplasticity in a supportive environment.

"Theater is great for restructuring and reframing of thoughts," she said. "Based on studies in juvenile facilities, there is a reduction in aggression and improvement in communication, which translates into an effective therapeutic environment."

Part of the ongoing mantra at Synergy Behavioral Health is the idea of getting better together at the facility. In order to get her new business and therapy model up and running, Gaestel contacted her daughter, Siobhan, to run a theater camp in Lewes similar to a camp she runs in New Bern, N.C.

Siobhan said her weekly camps at a young actors academy in New Bern keep her pretty busy, but she was able to sneak away for a week and bring those skills, and the help of her coworker, a choreographer, to the Synergy offices in Lewes for their inaugural theater camp.

"These kids are picking up on things so fast, we had to add extra activities," she said.

From what her first campers demonstrated, Siobhan said, she saw lots of confidence and resilience being built as the campers worked together to portray their own versions of theatrical productions.

"They are extremely comfortable in the group," she said. "We did some team building at the beginning, which I think is really helping them to be creative, helping them trust themselves and the group."

For more information about Synergy Behavioral Health, go to www.thebettertogethergroup.com or call 302-703-2276.