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A Good Place To Grow

OUR CLINICAL TREATMENT PROTOCOL

RESOLUTION FOCUSED THERAPY©

Annually, JCAHO bestows the Codman Award (Behavioral Health Care Category) to recognize one of their nationally accredited Behavioral Healthcare organizations for excellence in the use of outcomes measures to achieve health care quality improvement.

In 2001, AFC won the Codman Award for our work "The Impact of Resolution Focused Therapy© on Length of Stay and Aftercare in a Residential Treatment Center."

Resolution Focused Therapy© (RFT) is an innovative system of treatment, developed by Alternate Family Care, Inc., for use in its continuum of programs serving severely emotionally disturbed children who have experienced physical and emotional trauma. This unique approach is based on the foundational work of Vincent Strumolo, M.S., L.M.F.T., the AFC clinical team, and current evidence-based research.

As its name implies, RFT is designed to focus on the primary needs of children/families; resolving the issues that cause children to penetrate the system into restrictive placements; and provides a planned continuum of treatment throughout their treatment regardless of the locus of care.

RFT provides a common philosophy of treatment and intervention that incorporates identifiable service elements and predictable outcomes over time. RFT utilizes four phases of treatment and focal points that guide the therapist, the treatment team, parents/caregivers, and support personnel through complex clinical, medical, and developmental issues. The therapist, incorporating RFT's common language and philosophy, orchestrates the treatment team by the use of scripted interventions in an easy-to-use card system.

The RFT system incorporates a utilization management system that insures timely review of referrals, appropriate admissions, and continued monitoring of the child's progress with projected discharges dates. The utilization management functions within RFT offer timely, graphically represented information about treatment progress and outcomes for children/families/caregivers, the treatment team, case management agencies, funding providers, courts, and future placement/treatment providers.

Information management and performance improvements are built into the RFT system at each phase of treatment and in each service element. Throughout the clinical and administrative processes, data is collected, analyzed, interpreted and used for improvement on an individual and programmatic scale.

RFT offers a new paradigm for assessing, treating, and improving services for children and families while answering the need for comprehensive, effective, and efficient services.

FOCAL POINTS OF RFT PHASES

Focal Points of Phase I -- Orientation
1. To do a complete assessment of unresolved issues in the child's past.
2. To inform child of discharge criteria.
3. To teach safety techniques and help child secure a ground.
4. To educate the child to process of therapy.
5. To resolve all regressive behaviors.
6. To establish a therapeutic relationship.
7. To stabilize psychosis.
8. To prepare the child to move into Phase II.

Focal Points of Phase II -- Resolution
1. To connect the child's past memories to current affect.
2. To process and challenge, if necessary, the child's belief system.
3. To process all past unresolved events.
4. To prepare the child to move to Phase III.

Focal Points of Phase III -- Transition
1. To begin the healing process.
2. To assist the child in the grieving process and to explore issues of forgiveness, atonement, loyalties, self.
3. To establish future goals.
4. To prepare the child to move to Phase IV.

Focal Points of Phase IV -- Connection
1. To connect the child with community resources.
2. To process current status of future goals set in Treatment Phase III.
3. To re-unify the child with their biological family, foster family or adoptive family.
4. To process termination of Treatment.

OUR PROGRAMS

Specialized Therapeutic Foster Care (STFC)

This model of care utilizes specially trained treatment foster parents to provide a therapeutic environment in their own home. Severely Emotionally Disturbed foster care children, who require intensive therapeutic services, are placed into these trained and licensed homes. Psychiatric and therapeutic services are provided along with 24-hour on call clinical staff. AFC, Inc. has STFC homes throughout Broward and Dade counties. In addtion, there are programs in Melbourne, Jupiter, and Fort Pierce, Florida.

Statewide Inpatient Psychiatric Program (SIPP)

Our SIPP Program is a secure residential program for Severely Emotionally Disturbed children. The SIPP program provides an array of clinical services to the children placed at our 17 bed regional community based facility. Our residential program is designed to treat and reintegrate children into a less restrictive environment as quickly as possible. During treatment, a full range of services are provided for children up to 14 years of age. Placement capacity is 17 children.

Location: Hollywood, Florida

Therapeutic Group Home

Alternate Family Care, Inc., operates several Residential Group Homes for Severely Emotionally Disturbed children. Our group home programs provide an array of in-home clinical services to children who have been placed in a group living setting. The services that AFC provide are designed to slowly reintegrate children back into community settings and to maintain the children in the least restrictive environment. Our Pre-Independent Living Program provides an array of clinical services in an environment specifically designed for the development of autonomous self-care. Many emotionally disturbed children can be better served in group settings and such programs are more cost-effective than their institutional counterparts. Placement capacity varies among program sites. In Broward, the two group homes can accommodate 6 girls in our Omega group home and 6 boys in our Alpha group home.

Locations: Melbourne Area and Broward County, Florida.

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