> Walker Intensive Residential Treatment Program (IRTP)
> Walker Ain House BTR
> Connections
> Residential Treatment Support Services
The Walker Intensive Residential Treatment Program (IRTP) was created to help high-risk, multiply-complex children and their families build social, emotional, and behavioral competencies so they may achieve and maintain a permanent family connection while preventing the damage of serial placement disruptions. The Walker IRTP is a nationally accredited, fully licensed and Chapter 766-approved program that serves children between the ages of 5 and 13 who can be maintained in a staff-secure group setting.
We have carefully designed the Walker IRTP as a competence- and education-focused helping community, not a hospital. Even so, over the past several years we have steadily increased our capacity to stabilize, assess and care for young children with extreme behavioral instability and developmental complexity. Many children arrive at Walker with a history of multiple placements, chronic mental illness, developmental disorders (especially autism-spectrum disorders), language disorders, learning disabilities, experience with severe trauma, abuse and neglect, chronic medical/neurological disorders, and high-risk behaviors that have precluded them from full community participation. In fact, many children admitted at Walker arrive with two or more of these presenting difficulties.
An assessment by a multi-disciplinary team of Walker professionals often helps solve diagnostic puzzles by reconciling conflicting previous diagnoses; the Walker team can determine the “triggers” for a child’s violent or self-destructive behavior and the impediments to their academic achievement, resulting in appropriate and attainable treatment goals.
The work of the Walker IRTP does not focus on erasing deficits or making children and families “not sick”. Rather, we seek to understand how a child’s development has shaped his or her strengths, weaknesses and unique learning style. We work to provide autonomous opportunities for children and families to practice new behavior, “teaching moments” where they to learn to exercise control over themselves and gain an increased understanding of their specific challenges.
The Walker IRTP has been designed to seamlessly integrate child-focused and family-centered clinical work to produce optimum opportunity for a viable permanent placement. The program stresses safety and behavioral stabilization, as well as skill development in academics. Social competency development focuses on self-care, communication, recreational and play skills, and other skills necessary for participation in community activities and family life. The Walker IRTP staff is committed to working collaboratively with families, schools, and partner agencies toward the goal of home reunification or discharge to a less restrictive community placement; the Walker team provides case coordination and assessment that will produce concrete recommendations for discharge planning.
Behavioral Treatment Residence at The Walker School
The Walker Ain House is a Behavioral Treatment Residence (BTR) created to help high-risk, multiply-complex children and their families build social, emotional, and behavioral competencies so they may achieve and maintain a permanent family connection while preventing the damage of serial placement disruptions. The Walker Ain House BTR is built on the platform of Walker’s existing IRTP but allows children to continue to attend school in their communities while receiving treatment in residence at the Walker Needham campus.
The Walker Ain House BTR is available both 5 and 7 days per week to accommodate the maximum feasible connection to family and community. Over the past several years we have steadily increased our capacity to stabilize, assess, and care for young children with extreme behavioral instability and developmental complexity. Many children arrive at Walker with a history of multiple placements, chronic mental illness, developmental disorders (especially autism spectrum disorders), language disorders, learning disabilities, experience with severe trauma, abuse and neglect, chronic medical/neurological disorders, and high-risk behaviors that have precluded them from full community participation. In fact, many children admitted at Walker arrive with two or more of these presenting difficulties.
The Walker Ain House BTR program stresses safety and behavioral stabilization, as well as social competency areas such as self-care, communication, recreational, and play skills—skills necessary for participation in community activities and family life. The Walker Ain House BTR staff is committed to working collaboratively with families, schools, professional colleagues, and community partners toward the goal of home reunification or discharge to a less restrictive community placement; the Walker team will produce concrete recommendations for discharge planning and can also provide case coordination and assessment.
A comprehensive family-centered program for children with severe attachment disorders
Walker Connections is designed to work with children and families struggling with emotional attachment. This residential program is particularly tailored for those children whose histories of multiple placement disruption have left them incapable of making and maintaining appropriate human connections with family and caregivers.
The experience of trauma, severe abuse and neglect, multiple placements, and/or a disrupted adoption, often in combination with complex biologically-based disabilities, leaves many children unable to participate in healthy trusting relationships in a family. Their behavior towards those adults who attempt to care for them can range from emotional distance to violent aggression. The fundamental detachment of these children from family also leaves them alone and isolated from emotional support in their schools, neighborhoods and communities. Connections is built on the substantially retooled platform of the Walker Intensive Residential Treatment Program with the specific goal of preparing children and their families for reunification and permanency.
The Walker Connections team consults with families and professional partners to design a behavioral plan and intervention strategy that will effectively minimize the further “institutionalization” of a child. Families are invited to be with a child at Walker as much as possible for shared meals, bedtime, homework sessions, etc. to further develop and strengthen healthy attachment. Staff members in Walker Connections strive to provide maximum opportunity for “corrective experiences” through careful management of the physical environment and daily schedule—a therapeutic effort to create the interactive rhythms of family life. Specific behavior management principles and techniques are employed to identify functional attachment deficits, and use each “crisis” as an opportunity for further relational development.
By design, Walker Connections has a strong emphasis on family treatment. While individual therapy is important, traditional individual psychotherapy alone does not adequately address the clinical needs of many children who struggle with attachment disorders. Our clinical delivery focuses on the development of functional attachment behaviors with caregivers, much the ways some would teach social skills. It is the series of relationship seeking and responding behaviors between children and family that creates firm, reciprocal relationships. Connections does not practice holding, rebirthing, or rage-inducing techniques.
In addition to family therapy, parents of children in Walker Connections benefit from the Multi-Family Alliance for the Treatment of Abuse and Neglect. This therapeutic parent group meets regularly and takes a solution-focused approach to strategizing the management of child behavior. Parents use the sessions to update each other on their families’ situations, to learn from our therapists’ psychoeducational presentations, and to learn from other parents who are going through a similar experience.
Clients of Walker Intensive Residential Treatment, the Connections program, and the Ain House Behavioral Treatment Residence can utilize home-based and outreach support through Walker Family and Community Integration Services (FCIS). A variety of psychiatric services are also available to families through Walker’s affiliated outpatient clinic at the Brighton-Allston Mental Health Association.
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