Intercept and Multisystemic Therapy

We covered this in our Family Preservation series way back in February 2011 here.This is one concept to replace foster care for children who have serious emotional and behavioral problems.

The Youth Villages do Intercept in-home services. They have many locations:

• Alabama
• Florida
• Georgia
• Indiana
• Massachusetts
• New Hampshire
• North Carolina
• Oklahoma
• Oregon
• Tennessee (East, Middle & West)

A description of their program:”The Youth Villages Intercept in-home services program provides treatment to troubled children and families in their own homes at times convenient for the families.

• The program serves children of any age (infant to age 18) who have serious emotional and behavioral problems.
• Intercept specializes in diverting youth from out-of-home placements such as residential treatment facilities, foster homes, psychiatric residential treatment centers, hospitals or group homes, and in successfully reuniting children with their families in the community.
• Diversion services generally last four to six months, while reunification services generally last six to nine months. Intercept family intervention specialists are skilled at reuniting families even when the child has been out of the home for an extended period.

All treatment is family-centered and includes strength-based interventions. Our comprehensive treatment approach includes family therapy, mental health treatment for caregivers, parenting skills education, educational interventions, development of positive peer groups, and extensive help for families and children in accessing community resources and long-term, ongoing support.

Intercept family intervention specialists provide services to the family, rather than just to the youth, meeting with families at least three times weekly and remaining on-call around the clock. We tailor services to meet each family’s needs, while measuring treatment progress through ongoing assessment and review. Specialists collaborate with other providers, case workers and courts to formulate a collaborative treatment plan. Small case loads – four to six families – allow our family intervention specialists to focus on the individual needs of each child and family we serve.

Youth Villages partners with state and federal leaders to bring about major reforms to the juvenile justice, child welfare and children’s mental health systems. Our research-based programs help states reform their social services systems by providing measurable, sustainable results at a lower cost. We achieve cost savings by diverting youth from out-of-home placements, offering in-home services as an alternative and working toward family reunification. Our ongoing outcome evaluation studies have demonstrated that 82 percent of youth are successful up to two years after discharge from the program.”

 Multisystemic Therapy

This is offered in the following locations:

• Alabama
• North Carolina
• Washington, D.C..

A description of their program:”Youth Villages offers intensive in-home services using Multisystemic therapy (MST) in North Carolina, Washington, D.C., and Dothan, Alabama. MST has been demonstrated to be successful in helping young people age 12 to 17 who display serious antisocial behaviors and are at-risk of placement out of the home due to their behaviors.

MST is built on the principle and scientific evidence that a seriously troubled child’s behavioral problems are multidimensional and must be confronted using multiple strategies. The serious behavior problems of a child typically stem from a combination of influences, including family factors, deviant peer groups, problems in school or the community, and individual characteristics. The MST model calls for simultaneously addressing all of those inter-related areas.

MST is a family-based mental health treatment model developed by Scott W. Henggeler, Ph.D., at the Family Services Research Center at the Medical University of South Carolina. MST has been validated as an effective treatment model for reducing anti-social behavior among juveniles. Sixteen published outcome studies have documented positive, long-term behavioral change in youth who received MST.

Therapy is intensive and is conducted in the child’s home by a single counselor. The counselor typically works with the child and family over a three-to five-month period. As part of the process, the counselor typically works closely with teachers, neighbors, extended family, even members of the child’s peer group and their parents. A counselor on the MST team is available to the family 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Youth Villages’ MST Program features elements of successful trials of MST that have been demonstrated to transport to diverse communities:

• Low caseload (four to six families)
• High level of supervision, training, and clinical consultation, all conducted in accordance with MST specifications
• Thorough, on-going assessment of each family’s strengths, needs, and barriers to progress
• Individually designed treatment plans to address specific drivers of antisocial behavior
• Monitoring of adherence through implementation of MST’s Quality Assurance protocols

The average cost of MST treatment for a child is thousands less than traditional hospital-based treatment or other out-of-home placements. Savings result not only from less expensive services, but from reduced future costs to the community due to successful treatment outcomes.

MST is one of only a handful of models to be listed as highly effective in comprehensive reviews of randomized clinical trials for treating seriously troubled youth.

Examples of these findings include the following reports:

• MST Services
• Evidence Based Programs
• Blueprints Model Programs – Multisystemic Therapy
• Scientifically Based Approaches to Drug Addiction Treatment
• SAMHSA Model Programs – Multisystemic Therapy“

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