Family Team Dynamics: An Intervention for Enhancing Reflective Funtioning in Direct Care Staff in Children's Residential Relational Treatment

Abstract

Research on evidence-based practices consistently finds that the therapeutic relationship accounts for as much of the variance toward successful outcomes as any particular intervention. Self-awareness and self-reflection are critical practices to enhance the therapeutic relationship and ensure that the clinician is maximizing the accuracy of attunement with the client. Yet in relationally-oriented milieu treatments, those that have the most contact with and impact upon the children – the direct care staff – may have the least training and the least opportunity for self-reflection. Family Team Dynamics is a group process for those working directly with children that was created by Intermountain and has been in continual use for 18 years. The goals of this process are to enhance self-awareness, develop team cohesion, improve peer to peer supervision and create a healthy, therapeutic culture. The result, by staff ’s report, is a growth producing experience from which staff can better understand one another, support one another in tough situations, and better attune with the children, families and one another. Staff from this residential program rate supervision, guidance and learning as high, and have low turnover and high tenure compared to similar agencies working with seriously emotionally disturbed youth in residential care.