Improving Outcomes for Youth Leaving Residential Mental Health Programs
It costs a lot of money to provide treatment in a residential facility for children facing mental health issues. For a typical 6 – 8 month stay, costs can range from $20,000 to $38,400. But Social Work professors at Wilfrid Laurier University (WLU) found that after spending these resources, it still doesn’t seem to provide enough support to help kids transition from the treatment program back to their normal lives.
For the past three years, WLU researchers have been examining the community adaptation of over 200 youth as they left long term intensive children’s mental health programs in Ontario. They found youth leaving these treatment programs face challenges in adapting to community life after treatment. The findings are available in an executive summary, summary report, and full report.
With these issues identified the researchers set off to find a solution and they come up with the type of solution that makes policy wonks drool. They suggest youth transitioning out of residential mental health treatment should be provided programming that offers four things:
- Youth and education advocates
- Tutoring supports for at least 45 hours
- Parent training and support groups
- Youth skills development courses
You may be reading that and thinking what is to drool over in this proposal, it seems so logical? This is the beauty of the plan from a policy perspective, it’s a straightforward approach requiring minimal resources and most importantly, the program is based in good evidence.
It’s also effective from a crime prevention approach. Children leaving treatment are at greater risk for delinquent behavior. In addition, one half of the individuals in a mental health treatment program will return to the care of family and children services likely ending up in a group home placement. Criminal behaviour for youth in group homes is extremely high. Providing youth leaving mental health treatment facilities with the support they need can prevent them from being involved in the justice system.
Preventing crime does not need to be flashy, it just needs to work. It needs to be smart on crime.