by Donald Rahrer

Created on: March 17, 2010   Last Updated: March 19, 2010

Selecting an Effective Teen Drug Inpatient Program

 If your teen is out of control, dysfunctional, and risky with his/her life and other lives by abusing Alcohol-Drugs (AOD), commitment to a treatment program may be mandatory.

In the Article, you will learn how to select the best and most appropriate types of treatment facilities to meet the needs of your teen. Your options include:

1.  Inpatient hospitalization: The patients receive comprehensive psychiatric treatment in a hospital.  The length of treatment ranges from a few days for acute care and up to 30 days for intermediate care.

2.  A crisis residence:  This setting provides short-term crisis intervention, acute stabilization, detoxification services and treatment usually for fewer than15 days. Patients receive 24-hours-per-day supervision.

3.  A residential treatment facility: Seriously disturbed patients receive intensive and comprehensive psychiatric treatment in a campus-like setting on a long-term basis. 

Assuming your teen is psychologically and physically dependent on AOD, you will need to select the facility most appropriate to his situation.

Your selection process will be accomplished by locating, asking or calling a consultant at the facility and ask a series of questions to determine if this is a good choice for your teen.

The questions are as follows:

Ask:  Does the program have a well defined treatment philosophy that has been implemented on a practical and logical basis?

Why Ask? 

One of your first concerns is to find out if the staff involved with the program is qualified. If so, they should be able to give you  comprehensive, understandable mission statement that defines what they do and how they do it.

Ask:  Based on your teen's diagnosis, does he/she have other psychiatric problems in addition to the AOD problem? If so, these issues will be addressed in the treatment process.

Why Ask?

Whether AOD abuse or dependency is a primary disorder or a symptom of other problems is a controversial issue. You want to select a program that bridges the gap between these 2 opposing viewpoints, one that treats the AOD abuser and behavior and the potential emotional problems and issues.
  
Ask:  If this treatment is provided in a hospital, is it approved by the Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Hospitals (JCAH)?
       
Why Ask?

This is an absolute necessity. Make certain

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