No one wants to see a child removed from home and placed into foster care. In fact, foster care should always be considered a last resort, necessary to keep a child safe and healthy. Even then, it’s a temporary solution – until a child can safely return home to a family restored to health.
But what if we could avoid removal from the home altogether by helping families develop solutions and skills that reduce risks in everyday situations? What if we can help families get the tools they need to avoid the removal of children from the home in the first place?
Family Centered Treatment® is an evidence-based model of intensive in-home treatment services that focus on working with the family as a whole to build a stable healthy future. Through FCT, Saint Francis Ministries partners with families to identify and build upon their existing strengths so they can provide for the health and security of their children.
And it works. It really works.
Family Centered Treatment® enables clinicians to directly observe families where members are most comfortable – at home. Interacting with family members within their “natural” setting makes it possible to directly intervene in unhealthy behaviors and to immediately reinforce positive, healthy life choices.
Saint Francis Ministries recently developed a standardized customer experience survey which will be administered across all client programs bi-annually. It monitors customer satisfaction by seeking feedback directly from persons participating in the program. Survey recipients include biological parents or family members receiving Family Centered Treatment services from Saint Francis Ministries.
Now, here’s the good news.
We’ve administered the first survey in all the states where we provide FCT – Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, Arkansas – and the results are overwhelmingly positive. Across the board.
Yes, FCT works. It’s helping families heal and keeping kids at home.
Nicole McCauley, SFM’s vice president of prevention, feature in the August 3 “Strengthening Families” segment to talk about FCT and the survey results. The segment appears during “Good Day Kansas,” on Wichita’s NBC affiliate KSN. You can watch it that day or catch it later here.
We’ll also share more about the results in the weeks ahead – because it’s a story that deserves sharing.
It’s good new for kids and good news for families.
