Our View

Innovation is a hallmark of Massachusetts in health care, education, technology, business, health care, and mental health. In children’s mental health, the Massachusetts child psychiatry community has been bold in exploring and implementing psychopharmacological treatment- though disagreements exist on when and what medicines should be used with children.

But innovation is the rare exception, in psychosocial treatment for youth and families.

It is time for families need to demand the best for their children. It is also time for mental health leaders to lead more strongly to implement well established best practices; and for therapists to open themselves to the growing body of research based practice.

Today, many elements of treatment approaches for children - challenging kids from greatly varied cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds-are still organized around models developed for middle class adults a century ago- an hour session, once a week, mostly talk or play. This approach- the frequency, the interaction – is often not relevant for many of the youth and families who seek support from mental health professionals.

The clientele at outpatient clinics has changed significantly, but practice models only modestly. Training, reimbursement, service delivery, documentation are not aligned with requirements for delivering these best practice models. Our systems, our services, and our professional training have not kept up with the profound changes in the demographics and social experiences of the youth who come to us.

There is, however, a growing body of sophisticated clinical research; documenting treatment approaches that work- that have measurable, sustainable outcomes within reasonable timeframes. Many of the elements of these approaches are familiar to clinicians- it is their structured sequencing, intensity, frequency and application to specific populations that promise improved outcomes.

We believe that the youth and families who come to us for help deserve treatments that are tailored to their needs; and that the various constituencies involved in the delivery of children’s mental health- practitioners, clinics, training programs, state agencies, insurers and researchers- must begin working collaboratively to provide our youth with the services that promise more reliable outcomes. Children’s Friend is committed to the provision of services with proven outcomes.