Evaluating Components of Residential Treatment Success for the Most Complex Youth

Abstract

Residential treatment for youth has an unfortunate reputation due to a paucity of experimentally designed effectiveness studies. To contribute to the literature base and better understand residential treatment's effectiveness, demographic and treatment variables of the most highly complex youth were examined for their association with discharge placement success. Specific treatment variables were identified as being highly associated with discharge to more restrictive environments. Findings provide a way of using clinical treatment response data to better understand residential youth and suggest that familiarity with specific features of treatment may be helpful to supporting successful discharge placements.

Keywords:

• residential
• treatment
• youth
• outcomes
• effectiveness