Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America
Physician Leadership in Residential Treatment for Children and Adolescents
Section snippets
History of residential treatment for children and adolescents in the United States
The role of residential treatment centers (RTCs) in the mental health services array for youth is the direct result of 3 historic trends.1 The first trend relates to changes in social welfare policy. Many RTCs began as orphanages in the nineteenth century with little or no physician involvement. In the 1960s, social welfare policies changed, and orphanages fell out of favor in the United States.2 Many of these former orphanages were left without a clear mission. The second trend in the 1970s
Current practice and controversies
Modern RTCs have recognized and responded to the changing clinical needs of their population by providing multidisciplinary treatment of intermediate duration and acuity between inpatient and outpatient levels of care. RTCs have become tertiary care mental health settings. Children must “fail-up” to gain access.8 Typically, children will have had multiple prior hospitalizations, many failed medication trials, and multiple attempts at various psychotherapies and behavioral interventions before
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Am Psychol
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Am J Orthop
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Cited by (3)
Developing programme theories of leadership for integrated health and social care teams and systems: a realist synthesis
2022, Health and Social Care Delivery ResearchPreparing the next generation of physician leaders: Teaching management skills to medical students and residents
2019, Handbook of Research on the Efficacy of Training Programs and Systems in Medical EducationLong-term Outcomes of Children and Youth accessing Residential or Intensive Home-based Treatment: Three year follow up
2011, Journal of Child and Family Studies
Note: Throughout the text, youth and child are used interchangeably to represent the varied age group that residential treatment centers serve.