Handbook of Evidence-based Day Treatment Programs for Children and Adolescents

This book examines the intermediate level of mental health services with a focus on partial hospitalization program (PHP) and intensive outpatient program (IOP) models of care for youth. It reviews the history of PHPs and IOPs and highlights their current care models, demonstrating the increase in the development and implementation of evidence-based treatment (EBT) practices. The book explores issues relating to program development, implementation, and considerations for sustainability. It provides interventions designed to enhance the well-being of youth who are experiencing a range of mental health concerns as well as strategies to engage and involve their families. In addition, the book offers feasible strategies for measuring outcomes and applying these results to meaningful clinical evaluations in PHP and IOP settings. It describes the process of accessing and using these intermediate services as well as additional treatment resources that may be necessary in the continuum of mental health care for youth.

Key areas of coverage include:

• The history and purpose of mental health care and the role of day treatment programs for youth.
• Working with program administration and other stakeholders, identifying a patient population, and engaging community and referral sources.
• The importance of family involvement, coordination of care, and simultaneously addressing the transactional relationship between physical and mental health.
• Transitioning youth from pediatric mental health services into the adult mental health system.
• Working with a diverse patient population in intermediate treatment programs.
• Providing practical information for families and practitioners navigating the pediatric mental health continuum of care.

The Handbook of Evidence-Based Day Treatment Programs for Children and Adolescents is a must-have resource for researchers, professors, and graduate students as well as clinicians, therapists, course instructors, and other professionals in child and adolescent psychiatry, clinical child and school psychology, social work, counseling, public health, family studies, developmental psychology, pediatrics, and all related disciplines.

Jarrod M. Leffler, Ph.D., ABPP, is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), Children’s Hospital of Richmond, and the Virginia Treatment Center for Children. He provides oversight of outpatient, inpatient, and pediatric psychology programming and provides clinical service and supervision in these settings.  Before joining VCU Dr. Leffler was an Assistant Professor at Mayo Clinic where he was the co-director of the pediatric mood clinic and inpatient psychiatry consulting psychology. He developed and directed  the Child and Adolescent Integrated Mood Program (CAIMP), a two-week family-based PHP for youth with mood disorders, and the Pediatric Transition Program (PTP) a DBT focused IOP  . Dr. Leffler began developing day treatment programs in 2000, and since that time has developed PHPs and IOPs for youth ages 5-18.   He provides clinical supervision to psychology graduate students, interns and fellows as well as psychiatry residents and fellows and staff members. Dr. Leffler has published clinical research on PHP, IOP, and inpatient psychiatric hospitalization models of care; treatment models for youth and caregivers, including the Multifamily Psychoeducation Psychotherapy (MF-PEP), CAIMP, and individual-based treatment for youth with mood disorders. He has also published research on training staff on implementing EBTs. Dr. Leffler has served two terms as the President of the American Board of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology. He co-founded and co-chairs the Acute, Intensive, and Residential Service (AIRS) Special Interest Group of the Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology (Division 53) of the American Psychological Association.  

Elisabeth A. Frazier, Ph.D., is a Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University and an Attending Psychologist at the Emma Pendleton Bradley Hospital. She has provided direct clinical care and supervision of psychology and psychiatry trainees across various levels of care including inpatient, partial hospitalization, intensive outpatient, outpatient, and juvenile detention settings. Dr. Frazier currently works in the Adolescent Partial Hospitalization Program at Bradley Hospital, a family-based, short-term, intensive program treating adolescents with a wide range of psychiatric presenting problems. She is a lead psychologist in Bradley REACH, an innovative fully virtual partial hospitalization program (PHP) through Bradley Hospital, which brings PHP level of care to youth and families across multiple states in the United States. Dr. Frazier has published clinical research including adaptation and implementation of empirically based treatment in the inpatient psychiatry setting, clinical outcomes in adolescent PHP treatment, and intervention research in teens with mood, disruptive behavior, and substance use disorders in intensive outpatient and community outpatient settings. She has also served as the Practice Committee Co-Chair in the Acute, Intensive, and Residential Service (AIRS) Special Interest Group of the Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology (Division 53) of the American Psychological Association.