Applied Research In Residential Treatment

Here is a much-needed handbook for residential treatment administrators and clinicians considering research projects. Applied Research in Residential Treatment urges that applied, not basic, research is appropriate for residential treatment centers (RTCs). Research can be helpful for clinical work and RTC operation, but is not effective unless properly designed. This book suggests appropriate topics for research projects, gives practical suggestions on design, and contains example research reports. There are many technical books on research design, but few, if any, dealing with research projects suitable for RTCs--until now. Applied Research in Residential Treatment begins with an overview of the place of research in RTCs, followed by chapters presenting a range of research studies--both successful and not so successful--as examples. Specifically, chapters discuss: hypothetico-deductive (quantitative) versus observational-inductive (qualitative) approaches to research and evaluation the disadvantages and difficulties in using outcome measures to study the effects of treatment choice of statistical tools, sampling techniques, and interviewing strategies in research design the inutility of large statistical studies in understanding the individual child or milieu Applied Research in Residential Treatment is a helpful guide for clinicians and administrators currently planning research programs. It is also an informative source for those who wish to do research in the future and would like to know more about what strategies to follow.

The burden of mental illness on individuals, families, and communities has created profound challenges for our society. In recent years treatments and services for the mentally ill have moved almost exclusively to community settings, yet no comprehensive and progressive policies have emerged to counter stigmatizing and facilitate integration.

Adopt a more effective approach to temporary and long-term residential care! Presenting the voices of staff, parents, and residents, Family-Centered Services in Residential Treatment: New Approaches for Group Care examines the changes and challenges of residential care from the old-fashioned orphanage to the modern group-care home. These thoughtful essays offer suggestions and methods to provide more effective services in temporary and long-term settings. Containing case studies, personal experiences, and professional insights about the potentials and limitations of residential care, this reliable resource will help you develop improved services for youths and their families. Family-Centered Services in Residential Treatment presents fresh evaluations of new and old techniques as well as ideas for meeting individual needs. By building connections among parents, youths, and staff, you can develop more successful treatment programs and encourage stronger family ties even when children are best served by long-term residential care. Family-Centered Services in Residential Treatment addresses the crucial questions of residential care, including: how can staff ease children's transitions into and out of residential care? what do parents of emotionally disturbed youth need from the staff and professionals in a residential care setting? what was right--and wrong--about the old-fashioned orphanage? Could such an institution work today? how does the transition to the teamwork approach affect staff members? when is residential care most beneficial to children? what kind of care is appropriate for AIDS orphans? Family-Centered Services in Residential Treatment will help psychologists, therapists, and social workers unite theory and practice to create a family-oriented environment for troubled clients.

Integrate psychotherapy with residential treatment to achieve positive results for patients in group care! This book addresses the complex issues that arise in the effort to provide individual therapy in group care settings. It reviews classical case material, presents contemporary case studies, and examines practical and theoretical issues important to the effective delivery of treatment to individuals living in residential care. Noted experts who have been associated with The Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School at the University of Chicago and the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, share knowledge garnered from years of real-world experience to help you stay at the leading edge of the field and provide effective individual treatment to your clients in long- and short-term residential care. Psychotherapy in Group Care: Making Life Good Enough includes practical and theoretical chapters exploring important aspects of the group care paradigm. The book: presents a case study that describes vital aspects of the analytic process that emerged in work with an adolescent boy in a group home who felt as though he was a psychological orphan illustrates the role of play as a continuous and basic function in therapy and presents play-themed vignettes from analytic work with two young people in residential care revisits “Joey: A Mechanical Boy” and “Tommy the Space Child”—classic case studies from Bruno Bettelheim and Rudolph Ekstien—and explores the implications of contemporary relational theory for using the meaning and metaphor of behaviors and communications addresses issues of transference and counter-transference in the psychodynamic psychotherapy of a young girl in residential care—with a discussion of unrecognized rescue fantasies and projective identification, and of the need for residential childcare workers to recognize and work through the difficult feelings evoked in the process of working with seriously disturbed young people examines the structural basis for the integration of psychotherapy and residential treatment, considering the meaning of integration, variables that affect the manner and degree to which integration can be accomplished, and changes in the psychotherapists' roles that can maximize the potential of each variable explores three sets of theoretical issues facing clinicians as they play multiple roles in short-term residential treatment, discussing how conflicts in the roles of therapists and team leaders can be resolved, the implications of such a resolution in terms of confidentiality, and ways in which major approaches to psychotherapy can be adapted to new conditions considers the role of the primary clinician in relation to the residential team and explores the ways in which integration of psychotherapy and residential treatment can be implemented in the early phase of the treatment process

This book seeks to answer the question of how providers of residential treatment services can improve the transition process when children in their care are transferred to less restrictive situations. It looks at working with sexually aggressive youth, adolescents with behavioral or conduct disorders and the families of young people in residential care facilities as well as model transitional living programs, ways to integrate family work into residential care and programs that focus on social/life skills training.

Take a journey through one of the most costly psychiatric disorders: Conduct Disorder. Explore why children in the same environment as a child with conduct disorder are more affected than the child diagnosed with the problem. Delve into the reasons most practicing clinicians of conduct disorder are influenced more so by the persons they treat and their desire to refine theoretical understanding of others and improve their methods of helping than by empirical research. With the increasing need to effectively address conduct-disordered youth, this book offers a comparative analysis of eight distinctive theoretical and practical interventions by expert therapists of one case study of conduct-disordered youth. Coverage of each treatment includes: Overview of the model Establishment of treatment goals Discussion of assessment procedures Specific clinical interventions In addition, a comparison grid offers a summation and comparison of the eight treatment models for use in developing and enhancing patient-tailored treatment approaches.

Meet the challenge of coordinating effective board-staff teamwork! Using specific real-life examples and informed recommendations for board management, The New Board: Changing Issues, Roles and Relationships explains why and how to consider redesigning your board form and practice. The innovations suggested here, from minor adjustments to far-reaching reorganization, can help you find and keep board members, make board functioning more efficient, and help you comply with the new, stricter rules of managed care. The New Board informs the boards and staff of nonprofit residential service agencies about the nature of major contemporary challenges to board functioning. This innovative book offers an unusually diverse collection of contributors, including board members, executive staff, and academics. The resulting diversity of viewpoint produces a satisfying range of theoretical conversation and detailed description of actual practice. The New Board explores all the issues that affect boards in these days of rapid change: variations of board structures the pressures of managed care the increased complexity of service reduced board member availability the challenge of fund raising by modern boards contemporary considerations of legal liability of nonprofit boards The innovative ideas found in The New Board will help you and your nonprofit organization face the changes and challenges of the world of managed care. It is an essential resource for anyone interested in nonprofit organizations: CEOs and executive staff, academics and students in the field of nonprofit management, and board members themselves.