Building Research Capacity in Residential Treatment Centers: An Approach for Empirical Studies

Abstract

Residential treatment centers (RTCs) for children in the United States face growing pressures to engage in research and to conduct scientifically rigorous studies demonstrating treatment effectiveness and outcomes. At the same time, the existing research suggests that evidence regarding the effectiveness of residential treatment is limited and, more specifically, offers few illustrations of RTCs engaged in rigorous scientific research. This article reviews the benefits and challenges of conducting agency-based research and offers an approach to building institutional capacity for conducting research within RTCs.