Virtual family town hall: An innovative multi-family telehealth intervention during COVID-19

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed unprecedented challenges to the U.S. mental healthcare system. Immediate action has been required to transform existing social work practice models to ensure uninterrupted delivery of essential mental health services. This paper describes how clinicians in a residential program, who offered an in-person multi-family education workshop, rapidly pivoted in the context of the pandemic to develop and implement an alternative and unique multi-family intervention model – a virtual family town hall. This innovative telehealth practice model serves as an exemplar of best practices amidst the COVID-19 pandemic as it prioritized health and safety, increased accessibility, and allowed clinicians to effectively respond to family members’ heightened informational needs.

KEYWORDS:

• Telehealth
• COVID-19
• multi-family intervention
• virtual family town hall
• residential treatment

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to acknowledge and thank Katherine Gallagher, PhD for her generous and valuable feedback on this manuscript.

Declaration of interest statement

The author declares that the author has no conflict of interest.