Transforming Residential Interventions

"This new book is a must read for anyone involved with residential interventions! The focus on youth and family engagement is particularly exciting, as is the attention to current research and best practice. And, what sets this book apart, are the concrete strategies that can be implemented to take this service approach to the next level. I highly recommend this book!" – Johanna Bergan, Executive Director, Youth MOVE National, USA

"Having effective strategies for maximizing relationships between residential providers and families is key to moving from principle to practice, achieving meaningful engagement and improving long-term outcomes. This publication provides real strategies and solutions and will inspire your journey to success." – Pat Hunt, Executive Director, FREDLA, USA

"The authors are true champions for the well-being of children and families, never ceasing on their quest for best practices and clinical excellence. Their vision for partnership cannot be denied, with the ultimate partners being the children and families served through residential interventions. The voice of lived experience shines through like a beacon for authentic engagement, the only path forward." – Kari Sisson, Executive Director, Association of Children’s Residential Centers, USA

"Our nation is waking up to the importance of our nation’s mental health system and that too many of our children and youth are facing significant behavioral and/or emotional challenges. Quality residential interventions are as important to a child or youth with behavioral and/or emotional challenges, and his/her family, as a quality cancer hospital is to a child being treated for cancer. This book is a must read for all professionals in the mental health, child welfare, juvenile justice and education fields who provide, fund and/or oversee residential interventions. The book shares practices and strategies about what it takes to ensure that all children and youth, and their families, receive the critical residential treatments and supports they need, within the context of their individual strengths and challenges, so that they can once again live together successfully in their homes and communities. This is our time!" – Susan N. Dreyfus, CEO Alliance for Strong Families and Communities and former Secretary of the Washington State Dept of Social and Health Services, USA

"The work of the Building Bridges Initiative and its two publications on residential interventions for children, youth and families has revolutionized our thinking and our understanding of best practice around supporting youth with serious emotional challenges and their families. This latest volume should be mandatory reading for anyone working with, overseeing and/or funding residential programs. This book crystalizes our understanding of how to support children, youth and families, translating the latest developmental research into practical methods that can be used with residential interventions, and defines the bar by which purchasers of residential interventions and families who are considering residential should judge residential programs. We can accept nothing less than the very best developmental opportunities for the emotional health of our children and youth, and their families. Bravo for this important contribution to the field!" – Tracey Feild, former director of the Child Welfare Strategy Group of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, USA

"Over the past decade, the field of child welfare has made remarkable gains in the development of creative approaches to supporting children, families, and communities. This transformation has taken the form of greater integration of mental health services, enhanced community-based interventions, the expansion and diversification of wraparound approaches, and a greater focus on prevention and early intervention across all systems. As this paradigm shift has taken place, we have also begun to use residential interventions as a short-term tool for supporting successful reunification for youth and families, and helping youth achieve permanency. This book provides invaluable insights into the monumental transformation happening in the field today and is a must-read for practitioners who are working to create comprehensive systems of care that can flexibly and responsively serve children and families." – Ken Berrick, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Seneca Family of Agencies, USA

"Calling for the 2020s to be the 'Decade of Residential Practice,' this book sets a high bar for what is required to effectively integrate residential interventions into the network of community-based care and support for youth and families. With this second volume that includes practice innovations, policy approaches, planning and evaluation strategies, and first-person accounts, readers can gain practical information on how to infuse the Building Bridges framework of principles and practices into the way residential interventions are being implemented in their community. What is most apparent in this second volume, is the collective voice and purpose of the authors – families, youth, providers, policy makers, and researchers. They speak as one in their unified message of what it takes to implement quality residential interventions in a way that is affirming to all. The work of ensuring high standards and the principles and practices of the Building Bridges framework that are so eloquently laid out in this book is far from done. But this book provides tangible evidence that it can, and is, being done increasingly in communities across America. The 'Decade of Residential Practice' will require a strong commitment to continued dialogue, honest reflection, and strategic thinking. This second volume provides a roadmap for how to do just that." – Scott Bryant-Comstock, President and CEO, Children’s Mental Health Network, USA

"The use of Residential Interventions in the United States is undergoing transformational change and just in time to impact how to think about the ‘best use’ of residential interventions is this new book by leaders in Systems of Care and Therapeutic Residential Interventions for youth and their families. Continuing on the ground-breaking work started by the Building Bridges Initiative, these thought leaders are challenging the field to focus on measurable outcomes for youth and families using residential interventions as a platform for recovery embedded in mature, community-based systems of care. A must read for anyone working with youth with significant behavioral health conditions and their families that may choose a period of out-of-home care." – Christopher Bellonci, M.D., DFAACAP Vice President of Policy and Practice Chief Medical Officer Judge Baker Children’s Center; Medical Director of the National Technical Assistance Center for Children’s Behavioral Health. Adjunct Associate Professor at Tufts University School of Medicine Member of the Faculty of the Harvard Medical School, USA

"This book offers the most up-to-date, productive and constructive practice guidance for improving residential practices. It encourages readers to embrace change as an ongoing and evolutionary imperative given the significant impact of the service and support community on the lives of youth and families. The authors and editors all support the inevitable reality that everyone has a part to play in transforming residential interventions and advance clear direction on the roles we all must accept to ensure positive outcomes are achieved." – Jody Levison-Johnson, President & CEO, Council on Accreditation and President, Building Bridges, Inc. Board of Directors, USA