The parent-therapist program: alternate care for emotionally disturbed children

Area of Science:

• Child Psychology
• Family Therapy
• Healthcare Management

Background:

• Residential treatment centers are a common but costly intervention for disturbed children.
• There is a need for cost-effective alternatives to traditional residential care.
• Family-based interventions show promise in child mental health treatment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate an alternative to residential treatment centers for disturbed children.
• To assess the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of a home-based, extended family model.
• To explore the feasibility of training nuclear families to provide therapeutic support.

Main Methods:

• Recruitment of healthy nuclear families to participate in the program.
• Training families in therapeutic techniques for treating disturbed children.
• Organizing participating families into groups of five couples to function as extended families.
• Implementing a home-based treatment model where families treat children in their own homes.

Main Results:

• Program outcomes were found to be not significantly different from traditional residential treatment.
• The home-based extended family model demonstrated markedly lower costs compared to residential treatment.
• The intervention proved to be a viable and cost-effective alternative.

Conclusions:

• The developed alternative treatment program is effective in managing disturbed children.
• This extended family model offers a significantly more cost-effective approach than residential care.
• Family-based interventions can be successfully adapted to provide therapeutic services in a home setting.