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Behavioral Management Programs for Adolescents in Child Welfare

Scientific Ratings in this Topic
  • 1 Well-Supported by Research Evidence
  • 2 Supported by Research Evidence
  • 3 Promising Research Evidence
  • 4 Evidence Fails to Demonstrate Effect
  • 5 Concerning Practice
  • NR Not able to be Rated

Topic Areas

Topic Areas

Definition

Behavioral Management Programs for Adolescents in Child Welfare are defined by the CEBC as programs that help manage the behavior of adolescents in the Child Welfare system. Behaviors targeted include general disruptive behaviors (e.g., arguing and back talk), delinquent behaviors (e.g., petty theft and vandalism), truancy, and running away from out-of-home placements (commonly called being AWOL). In essence, these are the behaviors that may lead to a foster caregiver or group home asking the social worker to find a different placement for the child that is exhibiting these behaviors. Programs may work directly with youth and families, or train caregivers and staff on ways to handle behavior problems more effectively.

Studies have shown that youth involved with child welfare have higher than average rates of behavior problems in general, and are more likely to exhibit externalizing behaviors. Among youth in foster care, at least one study has shown that rates of delinquent and aggressive behavior were twice as high as those in the general youth population. Behavior problems among adolescents involved in child welfare are both a cause and a consequence of placement changes, often leading to multiple placement changes and movement to higher levels of care. By addressing these problem behaviors, and de-escalating difficult situations when they do arise, youth can be maintained safely and stably in the lowest level of care needed.

  • Target population: Adolescents involved with the Child Welfare system who exhibit behaviors such as general disruptive behaviors (e.g., arguing and back talk), delinquent behaviors (e.g., petty theft and vandalism), truancy, and running away from out-of-home placements (commonly called being AWOL)
  • Services/types that fit: Outpatient, day treatment, and residential services in individual or group formats that may target youth directly or adults (caregivers, teachers, etc.) who work with these youth
  • Delivered by: Mental health professionals or trained paraprofessionals
  • In order to be included: Program must specifically address behavior management for adolescents as a goal
  • In order to be rated: There must be research evidence (as specified by the Scientific Rating Scale) that examines behavior-related outcomes, such changes in behavior, symptom levels, and/or functioning

Downloadable Topic Area Summary

Definition

Behavioral Management Programs for Adolescents in Child Welfare are defined by the CEBC as programs that help manage the behavior of adolescents in the Child Welfare system. Behaviors targeted include general disruptive behaviors (e.g., arguing and back talk), delinquent behaviors (e.g., petty theft and vandalism), truancy, and running away from out-of-home placements (commonly called being AWOL). In essence, these are the behaviors that may lead to a foster caregiver or group home asking the social worker to find a different placement for the child that is exhibiting these behaviors. Programs may work directly with youth and families, or train caregivers and staff on ways to handle behavior problems more effectively.

Studies have shown that youth involved with child welfare have higher than average rates of behavior problems in general, and are more likely to exhibit externalizing behaviors. Among youth in foster care, at least one study has shown that rates of delinquent and aggressive behavior were twice as high as those in the general youth population. Behavior problems among adolescents involved in child welfare are both a cause and a consequence of placement changes, often leading to multiple placement changes and movement to higher levels of care. By addressing these problem behaviors, and de-escalating difficult situations when they do arise, youth can be maintained safely and stably in the lowest level of care needed.

  • Target population: Adolescents involved with the Child Welfare system who exhibit behaviors such as general disruptive behaviors (e.g., arguing and back talk), delinquent behaviors (e.g., petty theft and vandalism), truancy, and running away from out-of-home placements (commonly called being AWOL)
  • Services/types that fit: Outpatient, day treatment, and residential services in individual or group formats that may target youth directly or adults (caregivers, teachers, etc.) who work with these youth
  • Delivered by: Mental health professionals or trained paraprofessionals
  • In order to be included: Program must specifically address behavior management for adolescents as a goal
  • In order to be rated: There must be research evidence (as specified by the Scientific Rating Scale) that examines behavior-related outcomes, such changes in behavior, symptom levels, and/or functioning

Downloadable Topic Area Summary

Why was this topic chosen by the Advisory Committee?

The Behavioral Management Programs for Adolescents in Child Welfare topic area is relevant to child welfare because behavioral problems in adolescents are a challenge that frontline child welfare workers face on a regular basis. Child welfare workers want to know effective ways to help these minors who, in some cases, are leaving placements and running away. These youth are leaving the foster care system emotionally and educationally unprepared for adulthood and can be at higher risk for homelessness, drug abuse, and becoming victims of violence. It is the hope of the Advisory Committee that the programs in this topic area will address ways to improve the adolescent's behaviors to increase placement stability, thus reducing the number of placements and avoiding higher level placements; and ways to increase the adolescent's coping skills to provide support and allow the youth to set and accomplish goals for the future, stay in lower levels of care, and achieve more independence.

Barbara Fisher
Social Worker Practitioner
Yolo County Child Welfare Services, Woodland, CA

Why was this topic chosen by the Advisory Committee?

The Behavioral Management Programs for Adolescents in Child Welfare topic area is relevant to child welfare because behavioral problems in adolescents are a challenge that frontline child welfare workers face on a regular basis. Child welfare workers want to know effective ways to help these minors who, in some cases, are leaving placements and running away. These youth are leaving the foster care system emotionally and educationally unprepared for adulthood and can be at higher risk for homelessness, drug abuse, and becoming victims of violence. It is the hope of the Advisory Committee that the programs in this topic area will address ways to improve the adolescent's behaviors to increase placement stability, thus reducing the number of placements and avoiding higher level placements; and ways to increase the adolescent's coping skills to provide support and allow the youth to set and accomplish goals for the future, stay in lower levels of care, and achieve more independence.

Barbara Fisher
Social Worker Practitioner
Yolo County Child Welfare Services, Woodland, CA

Topic Expert

The Behavioral Management Programs for Adolescents in Child Welfare topic area was added in 2011. Curtis McMillen, PhD was the topic expert and was involved in identifying and rating any of the programs with an original load date in 2011 (as found on the bottom of the program's page on the CEBC) or others loaded earlier and added to this topic area when it launched. The topic area has grown over the years and any programs added since 2011 were identified by CEBC staff, the Scientific Panel, and/or the Advisory Committee. For these programs, Dr. McMillen was not involved in identifying or rating them.

Topic Expert

The Behavioral Management Programs for Adolescents in Child Welfare topic area was added in 2011. Curtis McMillen, PhD was the topic expert and was involved in identifying and rating any of the programs with an original load date in 2011 (as found on the bottom of the program's page on the CEBC) or others loaded earlier and added to this topic area when it launched. The topic area has grown over the years and any programs added since 2011 were identified by CEBC staff, the Scientific Panel, and/or the Advisory Committee. For these programs, Dr. McMillen was not involved in identifying or rating them.

Programs

Multidimensional Family Therapy

MDFT is a family-based treatment for adolescent substance use, delinquency, and other behavioral and emotional problems. Therapists work simultaneously in four interdependent domains: the adolescent, parent, family, and community. Therapy sessions are held alone with the youth, alone with the parents, and with youth and parents together. Once a therapeutic alliance is established and youth and parent motivation is enhanced, the MDFT therapist focuses on facilitating behavioral and interactional change. The final stage of MDFT works to solidify behavioral and relational changes and launch the family successfully so that treatment gains are maintained.

Scientific Rating 1

Multisystemic Therapy

Multisystemic Therapy (MST) is an intensive family and community-based treatment for serious juvenile offenders with possible substance abuse issues and their families. The primary goals of MST are to decrease youth criminal behavior and out-of-home placements. Critical features of MST include: (a) integration of empirically based treatment approaches to address a comprehensive range of risk factors across family, peer, school, and community contexts; (b) promotion of behavior change in the youth's natural environment, with the overriding goal of empowering caregivers; and (c) rigorous quality assurance mechanisms that focus on achieving outcomes through maintaining treatment fidelity and developing strategies to overcome barriers to behavior change.

Scientific Rating 1

Treatment Foster Care Oregon – Adolescents

TFCO-A (previously referred to as Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care - Adolescents) provides foster care treatment for children 12-17 years old with severe emotional and behavioral disorders and/or severe delinquency. TFCO-A aims to create opportunities for youths to successfully live in families rather than in group or institutional settings, and to simultaneously prepare their parents (or other long-term placement) to provide them with effective parenting. Four key elements of treatment are (1) providing youths with a consistent reinforcing environment where they are mentored and encouraged to develop academic and positive living skills, (2) providing daily structure with clear expectations and limits, with well-specified consequences delivered in a teaching-oriented manner, (3) providing close supervision of youths' whereabouts, and (4) helping youth to avoid deviant peer associations while providing them with the support and assistance needed to establish pro-social peer relationships. TFCO also has versions for preschoolers and children. Treatment Foster Care Oregon for Preschoolers (TFCO-P) is rated separately on this website. Treatment Foster Care Oregon for Children (TFCO-C) has not been tested separately, but has the same elements as TFCO-A except it includes materials more developmentally appropriate for younger children.

Scientific Rating 1

Functional Family Therapy

FFT is a family intervention program for dysfunctional youth with disruptive, externalizing problems. FFT has been applied to a wide range of problem youth and their families in various multi-ethnic, multicultural contexts. Target populations range from at-risk pre-adolescents to youth with moderate to severe problems such as conduct disorder, violent acting-out, and substance abuse. While FFT targets youth aged 11-18, younger siblings of referred adolescents often become part of the intervention process. Intervention ranges from, on average, 12 to 14 one-hour sessions. The number of sessions may be as few as 8 sessions for mild cases and up to 30 sessions for more difficult situations. In most programs, sessions are spread over a three-month period. FFT has been conducted both in clinic settings as an outpatient therapy and as a home-based model. The FFT clinical model offers clear identification of specific phases which organizes the intervention in a coherent manner, thereby allowing clinicians to maintain focus in the context of considerable family and individual disruption. Each phase includes specific goals, assessment foci, specific techniques of intervention, and therapist skills necessary for success.

Scientific Rating 2

KEEP SAFE

The objective of KEEP SAFE is to give parents effective tools for dealing with their child's externalizing and other behavioral and emotional problems including trauma and to support them in the implementation of those tools. Curriculum topics include framing the foster/kin parents' role as that of key agents of change with opportunities to alter the life course trajectories of the children placed with them. Foster/kin parents are taught methods for creating a safe environment, encouraging child cooperation, using behavioral contingencies and effective limit setting, and balancing encouragement and limits. There are also sessions on dealing with difficult problem behaviors including covert behaviors, promoting school success, encouraging positive peer relationships, and strategies for managing stress brought on by providing foster care. There is an emphasis on active learning methods; illustrations of primary concepts are presented via role-plays and videotapes. There is also a component of the model that involves having the youth meet weekly with a skills coach. The emphasis is on developing and maintaining positive peer relationships, increasing skills to deal responsibly and safely to avoid drug use and participation in health-risking sexual behavior, and to help these youth problem solve difficulties and stresses in social relationships with adults and at school. KEEP SAFE is also rated in the Placement Stabilization Programs topic area. Please click here to go to that entry.

Scientific Rating 2

Communities in Schools

Communities in Schools (CIS) is a youth–serving and dropout prevention organization. The mission of CIS is to link community resources and provide direct services to help young people succeed, stay in school, and prepare for life. CIS offers short-term services to every student and longer-term interventions that target students who need intensive ongoing assistance. The CIS Model is an approach that provides community-based, integrated student services with the following components:

  • Active engagement of a school-based coordinator
  • Comprehensive school- and student-level needs assessment
  • Community asset assessment and identification of service partners
  • Annual school and student-level plans for delivery of prevention and intervention services
  • Delivery of appropriate prevention and intervention services
  • Data collection and evaluation for reporting and modification of service strategies

Scientific Rating 3

Life Space Crisis Intervention

LSCI is a brain-based, trauma-informed interactive therapeutic strategy for turning crisis situations into learning opportunities for children and youth with chronic patterns of self-defeating behaviors. LSCI views problems or stressful incidents as opportunities for learning, growth, insight, and change.

LSCI teaches professionals and parents the therapeutic talking strategies they will need to help children during stressful moments, as well as the awareness and skills to understand and manage their own feelings and counter-aggressive tendencies when intervening with aggressive or out-of-control behaviors.

LSCI believes that the process of helping involves having the ability to listen deeply to the personal stories of children and youth and to recognize that their message often is not in their words, but in their underlying thoughts and feelings. The real strength of the LSCI program is its emphasis on teaching, and practicing specific interviewing techniques to help adults and kids debrief a problem situation or critical event.

LSCI is a non-physical intervention program that uses a multi-theoretical approach to behavior management and problem solving. LSCI provides professionals and parents with a roadmap through conflict to desired outcomes using crisis as an opportunity to teach and create positive relationships with youth. The goal of LCSI is that, through certification in LSCI, adults learn what to do when a youth:

  • Acts out in stress toward unsuspecting helpers, sparking explosive and endless power struggles.
  • Makes poor decisions based on distorted thought patterns and perceptual errors.
  • Has the right intentions and motivation but lacks the social skills to be successful.
  • Is purposefully aggressive and exploitive with little conscience.
  • Acts in self-damaging ways due to being burdened with shame and inadequacy.
  • Becomes entangled in destructive peer relationships and is vulnerable to manipulation.

Scientific Rating 3

Teaching-Family Model

TFM is a unique approach to human services characterized by clearly defined goals, integrated support systems, and a set of essential elements. TFM has been applied in residential group homes, home-based services, foster care and treatment foster care, schools, and psychiatric institutions. The model uses a married couple or other "teaching parents" to offer a family-like environment in the residence. The teaching parents help with learning living skills and positive interpersonal interaction skills. They are also involved with children's parents, teachers, and other support network to help maintain progress.

Scientific Rating 3

Wraparound

Wraparound is a team-based planning process intended to provide individualized and coordinated family-driven care. Wraparound is designed to meet the complex needs of children who are involved with several child and family-serving systems (e.g., mental health, child welfare, juvenile justice, special education, etc.), who are at risk of placement in institutional settings, and who experience emotional, behavioral, or mental health difficulties. The Wraparound process requires that families, providers, and key members of the family's social support network collaborate to build a creative plan that responds to the particular needs of the child and family. Team members then implement the plan and continue to meet regularly to monitor progress and make adjustments to the plan as necessary. The team continues its work until members reach a consensus that a formal Wraparound process is no longer needed.

The values associated with Wraparound require that the planning process itself, as well as the services and supports provided, should be individualized, family driven, culturally competent and community-based. Additionally, the Wraparound process should increase the "natural support" available to a family by strengthening interpersonal relationships and utilizing other resources that are available in the family's network of social and community relationships. Finally, Wraparound should be "strengths-based," helping the child and family recognize, utilize, and build talents, assets, and positive capacities.

Scientific Rating 3

Boys Republic Peer Accountability Model

The Boys Republic Peer Accountability Model teaches youth to be accountable for their behaviors through daily group therapy sessions, daily work experience, a comprehensive high school and vocational program, and a student government. Through this structured program, youth should develop the self-esteem and skills to be responsible and self-reliant adults. The main precepts for the development of Boys Republic in 1907 still hold true today; youth can learn to be accountable for their behavior by governing themselves, by developing a sense of responsibility, and, in addition, by developing a strong work ethic. The program can be done in a residential community program, a day treatment program, or a correctional facility.

Scientific Rating NR

CORE Teen

CORE (Critical Ongoing Resource Family Education) Teen, grounded in trauma-informed and culturally responsive parenting skill acquisition, is designed to increase the parenting efficacy of resource parents for youths with behavioral challenges, thereby it aims to reduce the risk of placement disruption and increase permanency options for such youths while also recruit new resource parents.

Scientific Rating NR

Foster Youth Services Coordinating Program

FYSCP through the Alameda County Office of Education provides a variety of educational support services for foster youth. Tutoring and mentoring are provided along with assistance in getting school records. Trainings are offered to foster care providers, child welfare workers, probation officers, school personnel, and community members. FYSCP also participates in "team decision meetings" which are daily placement related meetings scheduled by the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). FYSCP is also responsible for serving as Alameda County's foster youth education liaison.

Scientific Rating NR

Handle with Care Behavior Management System®

The Handle With Care Behavior Management System® is designed to train professionals on safely managing behaviorally challenged children and adults, including those with disruptive, aggressive and self-destructive behaviors. The program teaches staff to develop and use their management and relationship skills to reduce tension, and create and maintain a calm and safe environment for all. This verbal de-escalation and physical intervention program includes a patented restraint technique that is designed to be effective, safe and require fewer staff to safely manage a crisis than other restraint training programs. Handle With Care Behavior Management System® complies with all Federal and State laws and is accredited by all major professional regulatory bodies.

Scientific Rating NR

Nonviolent Crisis Intervention® Training

CPI’s Nonviolent Crisis Intervention® training is designed to provide learners with a framework for preventing, de-escalating, and safely responding to crisis behavior. The program focuses on what’s happening from two perspectives: the person in distress and the staff person. Participants are taught a broad range of tools to help them manage their own emotional responses and identify escalating behaviors in others. They practice approaches to keep their “emotional brain” from taking over in stressful situations. They also discover how having a plan before behavior escalates can help manage their fear and cultivate consistent practices. The philosophy of Care, Welfare, Safety, and Security℠ expands throughout the continuum of interventions necessary when working toward the reduction or elimination of restraint. The program realistically addresses the serious issue of restrictive intervention through careful assessment of risk and an evaluation of what may be considered “last resort.”

Scientific Rating NR

Physical/Psychological Management Training Restraining Training Programs

PMT is designed to give participants "hands-on" and practical experience in handling a variety of crisis episodes. The core of the PMT training program involves learning through a variety of experiences, such as simulation and role-play exercises, with the help of practical theoretical concepts. The program covers a wide range of interventions in four stages: prevention, pre-violence, violence, and post-violence.

Scientific Rating NR

Safe Crisis Management

SCM is a comprehensive behavior support and intervention training program designed to assist professional staff in managing disruptive or aggressive behavior. The training provides prevention "de-escalation" emergency (physical) intervention and follow-up processing for these behavior incidents. Staff completing the program must demonstrate proficiency via written and physical skills testing.

Scientific Rating NR

The Mandt System®

The Mandt System® is a relationally based program that uses a continuous learning and development approach to prevent, de-escalate, and if necessary, intervene in behavioral interactions that could become aggressive. The context of all behavior is relational. In human service settings, services are provided and received in the context of staff-to-staff relationships. When these relationships are characterized by words such as dignity, respect, trust, fairness, and integrity, the children, adolescents and adults will feel safer and their behavior will in turn reflect that safety. When service recipients can say that "In this place, and with these people, I feel safe™" they will hopefully be able to heal from the traumatic experiences many children and adolescents in service settings have experienced. The staff-to-staff and the staff-to-service-recipient relationships form the basis upon which children and adolescents will learn how to build and maintain healthy relationships. Children and adolescents will tend do what the staff do, not what they say to do, when relating to each other. The Mandt System® also believes that training is more effectively adopted by an organization if the leadership is informed and encouraged to support it. The Mandt System® provides a Letter to Administrators which highlights the importance of leadership and illustrates the key steps leaders can take to reduce the use of seclusion and restraint.

Family therapists have said that to be really good parents, adults must be really good partners. Children feel safe when their parents feel safe with each other. The Mandt System® has a version of the nonphysical aspects of the program specifically written for families. This empowers the certified trainers to not only teach the staff, but the families of children and adolescents as well, the skills needed to maintain the safety of all people. The Mandt System® also meets the '˜Character Counts'™ provisions in educational settings, and has been taught to students as young as 9 years old.

Scientific Rating NR

Therapeutic Crisis Intervention

At TCI's core lies the principle that successful resolution of a child's crisis depends on the environment's (the care organization) and the individual's (the care worker) therapeutic and developmentally appropriate response. The TCI system teaches and supports strategies for care workers at all levels of the organization to:

  • Assess children's aggressive behaviors as expressions of needs.
  • Monitor their own levels of arousal and understand the therapeutic use of self.
  • Use trauma-informed noncoercive, nonaggressive environmental and behavioral strategies and interventions that are designed to both de-escalate the crisis and lead to the child's own emotional self-regulation and growth.
  • Use a dynamic risk assessment that is designed to assess risk and use physical interventions only as a safety intervention that contains a child's acute aggression and violence; and reduces risk when a child's behavior is a danger to themselves or others.

Scientific Rating NR

Programs

Multidimensional Family Therapy

MDFT is a family-based treatment for adolescent substance use, delinquency, and other behavioral and emotional problems. Therapists work simultaneously in four interdependent domains: the adolescent, parent, family, and community. Therapy sessions are held alone with the youth, alone with the parents, and with youth and parents together. Once a therapeutic alliance is established and youth and parent motivation is enhanced, the MDFT therapist focuses on facilitating behavioral and interactional change. The final stage of MDFT works to solidify behavioral and relational changes and launch the family successfully so that treatment gains are maintained.

Scientific Rating 1

Multisystemic Therapy

Multisystemic Therapy (MST) is an intensive family and community-based treatment for serious juvenile offenders with possible substance abuse issues and their families. The primary goals of MST are to decrease youth criminal behavior and out-of-home placements. Critical features of MST include: (a) integration of empirically based treatment approaches to address a comprehensive range of risk factors across family, peer, school, and community contexts; (b) promotion of behavior change in the youth's natural environment, with the overriding goal of empowering caregivers; and (c) rigorous quality assurance mechanisms that focus on achieving outcomes through maintaining treatment fidelity and developing strategies to overcome barriers to behavior change.

Scientific Rating 1

Treatment Foster Care Oregon – Adolescents

TFCO-A (previously referred to as Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care - Adolescents) provides foster care treatment for children 12-17 years old with severe emotional and behavioral disorders and/or severe delinquency. TFCO-A aims to create opportunities for youths to successfully live in families rather than in group or institutional settings, and to simultaneously prepare their parents (or other long-term placement) to provide them with effective parenting. Four key elements of treatment are (1) providing youths with a consistent reinforcing environment where they are mentored and encouraged to develop academic and positive living skills, (2) providing daily structure with clear expectations and limits, with well-specified consequences delivered in a teaching-oriented manner, (3) providing close supervision of youths' whereabouts, and (4) helping youth to avoid deviant peer associations while providing them with the support and assistance needed to establish pro-social peer relationships. TFCO also has versions for preschoolers and children. Treatment Foster Care Oregon for Preschoolers (TFCO-P) is rated separately on this website. Treatment Foster Care Oregon for Children (TFCO-C) has not been tested separately, but has the same elements as TFCO-A except it includes materials more developmentally appropriate for younger children.

Scientific Rating 1

Functional Family Therapy

FFT is a family intervention program for dysfunctional youth with disruptive, externalizing problems. FFT has been applied to a wide range of problem youth and their families in various multi-ethnic, multicultural contexts. Target populations range from at-risk pre-adolescents to youth with moderate to severe problems such as conduct disorder, violent acting-out, and substance abuse. While FFT targets youth aged 11-18, younger siblings of referred adolescents often become part of the intervention process. Intervention ranges from, on average, 12 to 14 one-hour sessions. The number of sessions may be as few as 8 sessions for mild cases and up to 30 sessions for more difficult situations. In most programs, sessions are spread over a three-month period. FFT has been conducted both in clinic settings as an outpatient therapy and as a home-based model. The FFT clinical model offers clear identification of specific phases which organizes the intervention in a coherent manner, thereby allowing clinicians to maintain focus in the context of considerable family and individual disruption. Each phase includes specific goals, assessment foci, specific techniques of intervention, and therapist skills necessary for success.

Scientific Rating 2

KEEP SAFE

The objective of KEEP SAFE is to give parents effective tools for dealing with their child's externalizing and other behavioral and emotional problems including trauma and to support them in the implementation of those tools. Curriculum topics include framing the foster/kin parents' role as that of key agents of change with opportunities to alter the life course trajectories of the children placed with them. Foster/kin parents are taught methods for creating a safe environment, encouraging child cooperation, using behavioral contingencies and effective limit setting, and balancing encouragement and limits. There are also sessions on dealing with difficult problem behaviors including covert behaviors, promoting school success, encouraging positive peer relationships, and strategies for managing stress brought on by providing foster care. There is an emphasis on active learning methods; illustrations of primary concepts are presented via role-plays and videotapes. There is also a component of the model that involves having the youth meet weekly with a skills coach. The emphasis is on developing and maintaining positive peer relationships, increasing skills to deal responsibly and safely to avoid drug use and participation in health-risking sexual behavior, and to help these youth problem solve difficulties and stresses in social relationships with adults and at school. KEEP SAFE is also rated in the Placement Stabilization Programs topic area. Please click here to go to that entry.

Scientific Rating 2

Communities in Schools

Communities in Schools (CIS) is a youth–serving and dropout prevention organization. The mission of CIS is to link community resources and provide direct services to help young people succeed, stay in school, and prepare for life. CIS offers short-term services to every student and longer-term interventions that target students who need intensive ongoing assistance. The CIS Model is an approach that provides community-based, integrated student services with the following components:

  • Active engagement of a school-based coordinator
  • Comprehensive school- and student-level needs assessment
  • Community asset assessment and identification of service partners
  • Annual school and student-level plans for delivery of prevention and intervention services
  • Delivery of appropriate prevention and intervention services
  • Data collection and evaluation for reporting and modification of service strategies

Scientific Rating 3

Life Space Crisis Intervention

LSCI is a brain-based, trauma-informed interactive therapeutic strategy for turning crisis situations into learning opportunities for children and youth with chronic patterns of self-defeating behaviors. LSCI views problems or stressful incidents as opportunities for learning, growth, insight, and change.

LSCI teaches professionals and parents the therapeutic talking strategies they will need to help children during stressful moments, as well as the awareness and skills to understand and manage their own feelings and counter-aggressive tendencies when intervening with aggressive or out-of-control behaviors.

LSCI believes that the process of helping involves having the ability to listen deeply to the personal stories of children and youth and to recognize that their message often is not in their words, but in their underlying thoughts and feelings. The real strength of the LSCI program is its emphasis on teaching, and practicing specific interviewing techniques to help adults and kids debrief a problem situation or critical event.

LSCI is a non-physical intervention program that uses a multi-theoretical approach to behavior management and problem solving. LSCI provides professionals and parents with a roadmap through conflict to desired outcomes using crisis as an opportunity to teach and create positive relationships with youth. The goal of LCSI is that, through certification in LSCI, adults learn what to do when a youth:

  • Acts out in stress toward unsuspecting helpers, sparking explosive and endless power struggles.
  • Makes poor decisions based on distorted thought patterns and perceptual errors.
  • Has the right intentions and motivation but lacks the social skills to be successful.
  • Is purposefully aggressive and exploitive with little conscience.
  • Acts in self-damaging ways due to being burdened with shame and inadequacy.
  • Becomes entangled in destructive peer relationships and is vulnerable to manipulation.

Scientific Rating 3

Teaching-Family Model

TFM is a unique approach to human services characterized by clearly defined goals, integrated support systems, and a set of essential elements. TFM has been applied in residential group homes, home-based services, foster care and treatment foster care, schools, and psychiatric institutions. The model uses a married couple or other "teaching parents" to offer a family-like environment in the residence. The teaching parents help with learning living skills and positive interpersonal interaction skills. They are also involved with children's parents, teachers, and other support network to help maintain progress.

Scientific Rating 3

Wraparound

Wraparound is a team-based planning process intended to provide individualized and coordinated family-driven care. Wraparound is designed to meet the complex needs of children who are involved with several child and family-serving systems (e.g., mental health, child welfare, juvenile justice, special education, etc.), who are at risk of placement in institutional settings, and who experience emotional, behavioral, or mental health difficulties. The Wraparound process requires that families, providers, and key members of the family's social support network collaborate to build a creative plan that responds to the particular needs of the child and family. Team members then implement the plan and continue to meet regularly to monitor progress and make adjustments to the plan as necessary. The team continues its work until members reach a consensus that a formal Wraparound process is no longer needed.

The values associated with Wraparound require that the planning process itself, as well as the services and supports provided, should be individualized, family driven, culturally competent and community-based. Additionally, the Wraparound process should increase the "natural support" available to a family by strengthening interpersonal relationships and utilizing other resources that are available in the family's network of social and community relationships. Finally, Wraparound should be "strengths-based," helping the child and family recognize, utilize, and build talents, assets, and positive capacities.

Scientific Rating 3

Boys Republic Peer Accountability Model

The Boys Republic Peer Accountability Model teaches youth to be accountable for their behaviors through daily group therapy sessions, daily work experience, a comprehensive high school and vocational program, and a student government. Through this structured program, youth should develop the self-esteem and skills to be responsible and self-reliant adults. The main precepts for the development of Boys Republic in 1907 still hold true today; youth can learn to be accountable for their behavior by governing themselves, by developing a sense of responsibility, and, in addition, by developing a strong work ethic. The program can be done in a residential community program, a day treatment program, or a correctional facility.

Scientific Rating NR

CORE Teen

CORE (Critical Ongoing Resource Family Education) Teen, grounded in trauma-informed and culturally responsive parenting skill acquisition, is designed to increase the parenting efficacy of resource parents for youths with behavioral challenges, thereby it aims to reduce the risk of placement disruption and increase permanency options for such youths while also recruit new resource parents.

Scientific Rating NR

Foster Youth Services Coordinating Program

FYSCP through the Alameda County Office of Education provides a variety of educational support services for foster youth. Tutoring and mentoring are provided along with assistance in getting school records. Trainings are offered to foster care providers, child welfare workers, probation officers, school personnel, and community members. FYSCP also participates in "team decision meetings" which are daily placement related meetings scheduled by the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). FYSCP is also responsible for serving as Alameda County's foster youth education liaison.

Scientific Rating NR

Handle with Care Behavior Management System®

The Handle With Care Behavior Management System® is designed to train professionals on safely managing behaviorally challenged children and adults, including those with disruptive, aggressive and self-destructive behaviors. The program teaches staff to develop and use their management and relationship skills to reduce tension, and create and maintain a calm and safe environment for all. This verbal de-escalation and physical intervention program includes a patented restraint technique that is designed to be effective, safe and require fewer staff to safely manage a crisis than other restraint training programs. Handle With Care Behavior Management System® complies with all Federal and State laws and is accredited by all major professional regulatory bodies.

Scientific Rating NR

Nonviolent Crisis Intervention® Training

CPI’s Nonviolent Crisis Intervention® training is designed to provide learners with a framework for preventing, de-escalating, and safely responding to crisis behavior. The program focuses on what’s happening from two perspectives: the person in distress and the staff person. Participants are taught a broad range of tools to help them manage their own emotional responses and identify escalating behaviors in others. They practice approaches to keep their “emotional brain” from taking over in stressful situations. They also discover how having a plan before behavior escalates can help manage their fear and cultivate consistent practices. The philosophy of Care, Welfare, Safety, and Security℠ expands throughout the continuum of interventions necessary when working toward the reduction or elimination of restraint. The program realistically addresses the serious issue of restrictive intervention through careful assessment of risk and an evaluation of what may be considered “last resort.”

Scientific Rating NR

Physical/Psychological Management Training Restraining Training Programs

PMT is designed to give participants "hands-on" and practical experience in handling a variety of crisis episodes. The core of the PMT training program involves learning through a variety of experiences, such as simulation and role-play exercises, with the help of practical theoretical concepts. The program covers a wide range of interventions in four stages: prevention, pre-violence, violence, and post-violence.

Scientific Rating NR

Safe Crisis Management

SCM is a comprehensive behavior support and intervention training program designed to assist professional staff in managing disruptive or aggressive behavior. The training provides prevention "de-escalation" emergency (physical) intervention and follow-up processing for these behavior incidents. Staff completing the program must demonstrate proficiency via written and physical skills testing.

Scientific Rating NR

The Mandt System®

The Mandt System® is a relationally based program that uses a continuous learning and development approach to prevent, de-escalate, and if necessary, intervene in behavioral interactions that could become aggressive. The context of all behavior is relational. In human service settings, services are provided and received in the context of staff-to-staff relationships. When these relationships are characterized by words such as dignity, respect, trust, fairness, and integrity, the children, adolescents and adults will feel safer and their behavior will in turn reflect that safety. When service recipients can say that "In this place, and with these people, I feel safe™" they will hopefully be able to heal from the traumatic experiences many children and adolescents in service settings have experienced. The staff-to-staff and the staff-to-service-recipient relationships form the basis upon which children and adolescents will learn how to build and maintain healthy relationships. Children and adolescents will tend do what the staff do, not what they say to do, when relating to each other. The Mandt System® also believes that training is more effectively adopted by an organization if the leadership is informed and encouraged to support it. The Mandt System® provides a Letter to Administrators which highlights the importance of leadership and illustrates the key steps leaders can take to reduce the use of seclusion and restraint.

Family therapists have said that to be really good parents, adults must be really good partners. Children feel safe when their parents feel safe with each other. The Mandt System® has a version of the nonphysical aspects of the program specifically written for families. This empowers the certified trainers to not only teach the staff, but the families of children and adolescents as well, the skills needed to maintain the safety of all people. The Mandt System® also meets the '˜Character Counts'™ provisions in educational settings, and has been taught to students as young as 9 years old.

Scientific Rating NR

Therapeutic Crisis Intervention

At TCI's core lies the principle that successful resolution of a child's crisis depends on the environment's (the care organization) and the individual's (the care worker) therapeutic and developmentally appropriate response. The TCI system teaches and supports strategies for care workers at all levels of the organization to:

  • Assess children's aggressive behaviors as expressions of needs.
  • Monitor their own levels of arousal and understand the therapeutic use of self.
  • Use trauma-informed noncoercive, nonaggressive environmental and behavioral strategies and interventions that are designed to both de-escalate the crisis and lead to the child's own emotional self-regulation and growth.
  • Use a dynamic risk assessment that is designed to assess risk and use physical interventions only as a safety intervention that contains a child's acute aggression and violence; and reduces risk when a child's behavior is a danger to themselves or others.

Scientific Rating NR