How to Choose the Best Residential Treatment Center for You

Many cater to specific populations, e.g. teens, substance abuse, etc. To be candid, as in any industry some of these residential programs are outstanding, highly ethical, and have a reputation for doing excellent work. Others may leave much to be desired. For parents who attempt to find a program on the internet, the array of choices can create confusion about what is best for their son or daughter.

It needs to be clearly said that there is no ideal residential treatment center. Any therapeutic program is like a tool in a tool chest—perhaps right for one situation and likely very wrong for another. However, there are several principles to guide a parent or loved one in the process.

The first principle is to get professional help, where possible, in making this decision. Normally your son or daughter will be seeing a local counselor, psychiatrist, or therapist. Ask for their suggestions and advice. Get their perspective on what elements are most important for an out-of-home placement. Some families will hire professionals known as “educational consultants” to assist with finding the right program. As with the programs themselves, do your homework before hiring a consultant to make sure they are really what you need. In situations where there is no outside professional assistance, parents should put as much time as possible in doing due diligence. If you end up doing the homework on their own, make sure to visit PRIOR to placement, make sure that the facility is set up to handle all of the issues their child presents, and do yourself a favor and get as many references as possible. In every case, be aware of a program that takes everybody, because the chances are very good that your specific needs won’t get met.

Here are some other things to consider when choosing residential treatment:

Gender specific programming—when boys or girls are highly sexually active, putting them in a co-ed setting with the opposite sex is often not the best choice for obvious reasons. Even if programs successfully keep the two sexes from mixing too much, studies show that the presence of the opposite sex can be a distraction in therapy and slows down rate of progress.

Types of therapy—there are now many different therapeutic approaches that are proven successful with trauma and other behavioral health issues. Most good residential treatment programs offer dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), equine assisted psychotherapy (EAP), EMDR for trauma, play therapy, rec therapy, and much more than just the traditional talk therapy.

Strong family systems work—those in residential treatment will tell you that having the family work on its issues while their child is working on theirs is one of the greatest benefits of residential treatment. If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result, parents need to make sure they are learning how to do things differently while their son or daughter is healing.