How DBT Meets the Practice Pillars of Residential Treatment

In 2017, the Building Bridges Initiative identified the Best Practices for Residential Interventions for Youth and their Families, establishing the practice pillars of residential care. Can one evidenced based treatment model meet all the practice pillars of residential treatment? In this interactive presentation participants will explore if Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), a treatment developed for individuals with disorders of emotion regulation, suicidality, and self-harming behavior (Linehan, 1993), which includes four components-phone coaching, skills training, individual therapy and a consultation team can meet the identified practice pillars of residential treatment. DBT has been adapted across multiple setting and has been adapted for specific populations, but can one treatment model provide the most effective care to get clients & families back to their life worth living as quick as possible? This presentation will discuss how DBT can support the practice pillars of residential treatment including family & youth driven, culturally competent treatment, trauma informed, data driven, and home and community based while also holding the dialectic of what still needs to be accomplished. The outcomes of implementing one treatment model in a 34-bed locked residential facility that meets all the residential treatment pillars will be demonstrated. The outcomes include decrease in restraints, increase in family involvement; decrease in corrective actions from accrediting boards and a decrease in staff burnout and feelings of ineffectiveness.