Joining the Treatment Process: How Families Can Be Involved in Residential and Outpatient Care
Family involvement in teen mental health care can be a powerful tonic in your child’s recovery journey.
Being actively involved in your child’s mental health not only increases the chance that they’ll be willing to accept therapy, but it can also improve the outcomes of treatment. Moreover, family engagement can boost the family bond, helping a teen feel supported every step of the way.1
The suitable level of family involvement in teen mental health care can depend on your child’s age, symptoms, and needs. Yet, being involved in any way, be it practical or emotional, can show your child that you’re invested in their happiness and health.
If you’re unsure how to join the treatment process, mental health advice and support are available to you. In the meantime, this article can give you a clearer idea on how to engage with your child’s mental health journey by discussing:
- The benefits of family participation in mental health care
- How to participate in mental health care for your child
- How families can help with residential care
- The ways that families can support outpatient care
Benefits of Family Participation in Mental Health Care
Family involvement in teen mental health care sets the foundation for improved relationships, self-confidence, and emotional and physical resilience. In other words, investing your time and energy in supporting your child in treatment leads to better recovery outcomes and a brighter, more positive future.
Family involvement in mental health treatment has a variety of benefits, including:
- It helps a teen to feel more supported: When family members are actively involved in treatment, they can better understand how to help a teenager in their recovery. This creates a network of stability and ensures that they feel supported at every stage.3
- Families can help tailor treatment to a teen’s needs: When families are involved in treatment, they’ve been shown to raise important questions about the types of treatment a teen receives in both inpatient and outpatient care. These questions can improve the appropriateness of treatment, including medication safety, adherence, and treatment satisfaction.2,4
- It brings together all elements of a teen’s care: When families are involved in their child’s treatment, they can foster an inclusive attitude that allows mental health professionals to openly discuss a child’s care and safety.5
- Engagement improves the likelihood that a teen will complete treatment: If a teen is resistant to the idea of treatment, dropping out of treatment is a risk. However, when families are involved, it’s more likely that a child will complete a treatment program – and recover.1
While it’s clear that family participation in mental health care improves the outcomes for a child’s mental health, knowing how to go about joining treatment can be confusing. We discuss ways you can be actively involved next.
How to Participate in Mental Health Care for Your Child
Have Open, Honest Conversations About Your Child’s Health and Needs
It can be difficult to understand what your teen is going through and how they want to be supported without first discussing their challenges with them. You can do so by creating a safe space where you can normalize conversations about mental health. Perhaps consider sharing your concerns and gently asking how they’ve been coping. You can also reduce any stigma by talking about your own feelings in encouraging ways.
Learning About Their Difficulties
If your child has a mental health diagnosis, it can help to learn about what they’re going through and why. Government websites, mental health resources, and mental health professionals can help you and your child recognize and understand the symptoms of mental health conditions as well as options for recovery.
Support Them in Decision-Making Processes
If your child has been experiencing mental health challenges, it may help to discuss the option of professional mental health treatment. You can explain what these programs look like, as well as guide them in making the right choices for their needs.
Aside from helping them make decisions around professional treatment, you can also support them in making choices for healthy lifestyle changes. This could include encouraging them to choose healthy meals, forms of exercise, or mindfulness or meditation activities.
Advocate for Their Mental Health Rights
Everyone has rights in mental health treatment, including receiving timely assessments and treatment packages that fit unique needs. Talking to a variety of health professionals can feel overwhelming for a teen, but you can make sure that their needs and rights are protected in treatment.
You know your child better than anyone else, so you can make sure that their voice is listened to, that they’re given information on treatment options, and that answers to their questions are provided. By taking steps such as these, you’re protecting their mental health rights and reducing the risk of long-term emotional difficulties. Local mental health advocacy groups can also assist you in this process.
Collaborate in the Systems in Their Life
Entering into mental health treatment can create an imbalance in your child’s life. All of a sudden they’re not just managing time between home, school, family, and friends – they also have to factor in time for treatment. Collaborating with the systems in your child’s life can help ease pressure and stress, as well as improve academic performance and outcomes for recovery.
Don’t hesitate to communicate with your child’s school, doctor, and mental health professional. You can share updates about your child’s behaviors, treatment, and recovery. Plus, teachers can help you support your child’s school work, ensuring they don’t fall too far behind. Additionally, mental health professionals can advise you on how to be involved in their treatment to increase the chance of success and improved well-being.
While it’s good to collaborate with the systems in your child’s life, a teen usually has a high need for self-rule and independence. Therefore, it’s important to give them a voice in their care. Respect their wishes and concerns and make sure they’re comfortable with how you communicate with the other people in their life.
Help Them in Practical Ways
Coping with a mental health condition can affect a teen’s concentration, reducing their ability to remember facts and instructions. You can help your child with practical tasks such as remembering appointments, adhering to medication, or even just taking a few household chores off their plate.
The ways families can be involved in their child’s mental health care may also depend on the type of treatment program they receive, so we cover these options next.
How Families Can Help With Residential Care
- Attending treatment plan meetings with their child
- Informal visits to spend time with a child
- Helping to prepare for discharge from care
- Participation in therapy sessions
When your child is in residential treatment, their mental health professionals may discuss the option of family therapy if they believe it would benefit your child’s outcomes. While many assume that family therapy involves blaming parents for a child’s problems, it’s actually about helping a child and their family learn healthier conflict resolution skills. Let’s discuss this topic a little further.
Family Counseling During Residential Treatment
When a teen is finding coping with their mental health challenging, the whole family is affected. While all members try to come to terms with changing behaviors and emotions, unhealthy patterns of communication can emerge. Yet, it can be very difficult to spot our own communication patterns and how they might affect other people.
Family counseling during residential treatment can help all family members recognize these patterns and how they can affect a child’s mental health. This way, risk factors for mental health conditions can be managed in more healthy ways. Family therapy is not a “shaming and blaming” process – it helps highlight and improve unhelpful dynamics to allow families to grow and heal.10
How Families Can Support Outpatient Care
Family support in outpatient care is also an essential tool in a child’s mental health first aid kit. Research shows that family support in outpatient care can improve a teen’s recovery outcomes and reduce the risk of symptom relapse and inpatient admission.11
You can support your child’s outpatient care by taking the steps listed in the section on how to participate in mental health care for your child. However, another important method of support is helping in the design and delivery of outpatient treatment options.
Speaking to a doctor or mental health professional can help you and your child better understand therapy options for your child’s needs. They’ll likely discuss evidence-based options such as the following.
Outpatient Care Options for Teen Mental Health:
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): A professional will likely discuss the option of CBT with you and your child. CBT is both popular and effective in the treatment of a range of mental health conditions as it works by targeting teens’ thoughts and actions. Through this, it helps identify negative patterns and helps teens build healthy ways of coping.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): As a parent, you may be aware of how your child’s previous experiences, such as trauma, could be contributing to their mental health difficulties. EMDR is an effective way of treating trauma as it changes how these memories are stored in the brain, helping a teen move past trauma and form more positive beliefs.
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation: TMS can be effective in treating treatment-resistant mental health conditions. It’s a non-invasive therapy that uses magnetic fields to activate nerve cells in targeted areas of the brain – improving outlook and mood.
Interpersonal Therapy: While relationships can be protective of mental health, they can also contribute to mental health difficulties. If this is the case for your child, interpersonal therapy can help them work through these issues and figure out better ways of coping to improve their mental health.
Mindfulness-Based Therapy (MBT): MBT combines elements of CBT with non-judgmental mindfulness techniques to help teens combat negative emotions and moods. Through MBT, your child can learn how to not fall into a negativity cycle and build more positive self-beliefs.
Each of these treatments can also be made available through a residential program if this is more suited to your child’s needs.
How to Participate in Mental Health Care for Your Child
When trying to be as actively involved as possible in your child’s mental health care, you may come across a few hurdles. For instance, you might worry that you’ll over or understep your mark or not understand your rights as a parent in your child’s mental health treatment.
If you’re unsure about how to proceed with joining the treatment process, Mission Prep can help. Our team understands how integral family involvement is in a teenager’s mental health outcomes, so we strive to promote inclusivity and understanding every step of the way.
Mission Prep provides outpatient and residential treatment for different teen mental health conditions in various locations. Thus, we can discuss family engagement options for whatever level of involvement your teenager wants and needs. Our team is available 24/7 to answer any concerns – even if you decide that our programs aren’t suitable for your child’s needs. Contact us to learn more.
References
- Berry, K. R., Gliske, K., Schmidt, C., Ballard, J., Killian, M., & Fenkel, C. (2023). The Impact of Family Therapy Participation on Youths and Young Adult Engagement and Retention in a Telehealth Intensive Outpatient Program: Quality Improvement Analysis. JMIR Formative Research, 7, e45305. https://doi.org/10.2196/45305
- Cené, C. W., Johnson, B. H., Wells, N., Baker, B., Davis, R., & Turchi, R. (2016). A Narrative Review of Patient and Family Engagement: The “Foundation” of the Medical Home. Medical Care, 54(7), 697. https://doi.org/10.1097/MLR.0000000000000548
- Saarinen, J., Mishina, K., Soikkeli-Jalonen, A., & Haavisto, E. (2023). Family members’ participation in palliative inpatient care: An integrative review. Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences, 37(4), 897-908. https://doi.org/10.1111/scs.13062
- Benjamin, J. M., Cox, E. D., Trapskin, P. J., Rajamanickam, V. P., Jorgenson, R. C., Weber, H. L., Pearson, R. E., Carayon, P., & Lubcke, N. L. (2015). Family-Initiated Dialogue About Medications During Family-Centered Rounds. Pediatrics, 135(1), 94. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2013-3885
- Alcindor, M., & Cadet, M. (2021). Nurses consider family involvement as an important element of patient care. Evidence-Based Nursing, 24, 100. https://doi.org/10.1136/ebnurs-2020-103363
- Cuesta-Lozano, D., Lopez-Alcalde, J., Castro Molina, F. J., García Sastre, M., Maravilla Herrera, P., Muriel, A., Asenjo-Esteve, Á. L., Alvarez-Diaz, N., Monge Martín, D., & Carralero-Montero, A. (2022). Psychoeducation for the parents of people with severe mental illness. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2022(6), CD014532. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD014532
- American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. (n.d.). Advocating for your child (Facts for Families No. 74). Retrieved from https://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Facts_for_Families/FFF-Guide/Advocating-For-Your-Child-074.aspx
- Honig, A., Hofman, A., Rozendaal, N., & Dingemans, P. (1997). Psycho-education in bipolar disorder: Effect on expressed emotion. Psychiatry Research, 72(1), 17–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0165-1781(97)00072-3
- Broekhoven, J. L., Blankestein, A. M. M. M., van Santvoort, F., et al. (2023). Family-centeredness in secure residential treatment and its relationship with parental involvement and adolescent behavioural outcomes. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 32, 3697–3713. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-023-02603-2
- Rutter, M. (1999). Resilience concepts and findings: Implications for family therapy. Journal of Family Therapy, 21(2), 119-144. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6427.00108
- Macrae, L. (2019). How can family involvement in inpatient and crisis care contribute to improved patient wellbeing and safety? Health Research Authority. https://www.hra.nhs.uk/planning-and-improving-research/application-summaries/research-summaries/effective-family-involvement-to-improve-patient-wellbeing-and-safety/
