In North Carolina, Texas, Washington, D.C., and Dothan, AL, Youth Villages provides Multisystemic Therapy (MST), which has demonstrated to be successful in helping youth ages 12 to 17 who display serious antisocial behaviors and are at-risk of placement out of the home due to their behaviors.  Beginning in 1994, Youth Villages was one of the first agencies to implement MST on a large scale outside of clinical trials. 

MST is built on the principle and scientific evidence that a seriously troubled child's behavioral problems are multidimensional and must be confronted using multiple strategies.  The serious behavior problems of a child typically stem from a combination of influences including family factors, deviant peer group, problems in school or the community, and individual characteristics. The MST model calls for simultaneously addressing all of those inter-related areas.

Multisystemic Therapy (MST) is a family-based mental health treatment model developed by Scott W. Henggeler, Ph.D., at the Family Services Research Center at the Medical University of South Carolina. MST has been validated as an effective treatment model for reducing anti-social behavior among juveniles (Kazdin & Weisz, 1998).  Sixteen published outcome studies have documented positive, long-term behavioral change in youth who received MST; further research has identified the impact of model fidelity on outcomes and has investigated the effect of a variety of client and therapist characteristics on outcomes (Schoenwald, LeTourneau, Halliday-Boykins 2005; Schoenwald, Sheidow et al., 2003).

Therapy is intensive and is conducted in the child's home by a single counselor. The counselor typically works with the child and family over a three-to five-month period.  As part of the process, the counselor typically works closely with teachers, neighbors, extended family, even members of the child's peer group and their parents.  A counselor on the MST team is available to the family 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Youth Villages' MST Program features elements of successful trials of MST that have been demonstrated to transport to diverse communities:

• Low caseload (four to six families)
• High level of supervision, training, and clinical consultation, all conducted in accordance with MST specifications
• Thorough, on-going assessment of each family's strengths, needs, and barriers to progress
• Individually designed treatment plans to address specific drivers of antisocial behavior
  Monitoring of adherence through implementation of MST's Quality Assurance protocols

In our MST Program in North Carolina, 84% of youth are discharged successfully to their families; 76% of youth are still placed at home six months following discharge.  Growing by more than 300% in the past four years, Youth Villages is committed to expanding our MST Program.  We began providing MST to child and families in North Carolina in January 2006 and have served more than 600 youth in the state.

The average cost of MST treatment for a child is thousands less than traditional hospital-based treatment or other out-of-home placements. Savings result not only from less expensive services, but from reduced future costs to the community due to successful treatment outcomes.
 
References:

Kazdin, A. E. & Weisz, J. R.  (1998). Identifying and developing empirically supported child and adolescent treatments.  Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 66, 19-36.

Schoenwald, S. K., Sheidow, A. J., Letourneau, E. J., & Liao, J. G. (2003). Transportability of Multisystemic Therapy: Evidence for multilevel influences.  Mental Health Services Research, 5, 223-239.

Schoenwald, S. K., Letourneau, E. J., & Halliday Boykins, C. A. (2005).  Predicting therapist adherence to a transported family-based treatment for youth.  Journal of Clinical and Adolescent Psychology, 34 (4), 658-670

"MST represents a complete change in our thinking about what is the best way to treat troubled children. For many years, the prevailing wisdom was that child-focused therapy and out-of-home placements were the best approach. MST offers scientific evidence that intensive, family-based therapy can be a major part of the solution for many seriously troubled teens and their families. Before, many mental health providers saw the family as the 'problem.' With the research on MST, we know that the family is the solution. We know that the parents or primary caregivers are the key to the long-term success of the child."

-- Patrick W. Lawler, chief executive officer of Youth Villages

To learn more about Multisystemic Therapy (MST), click on one of the links below:

• MST Services
• Evidence Based Programs
• Blueprints Model Programs - Multisystemic Therapy
• Scientifically Based Approches to Drug Addiction Treatment
• SAMHSA Model Programs - Multisystemic Therapy