When outpatient care isn’t enough, residential treatment becomes necessary for teens with severe mental health issues. Residential treatment can help teens with persistent emotional, behavioral, or psychiatric problems that significantly impair daily functioning. Residential treatment programs consist of a structured environment with 24/7 support and individualized therapy.
Is your teen struggling with a mental health crisis? Residential treatment might become necessary for teens when severe mental health issues significantly impact their daily functioning and safety.
A residential treatment program provides a structured environment with constant professional support, while specialized treatment modalities help tackle complex emotional, behavioral, or psychiatric problems that outpatient care cannot sufficiently manage. Here’s what parents should know about when residential treatment becomes necessary.
Understanding Residential Treatment
Residential treatment programs take place in a homelike setting, emphasizing comfort and familiarity. Unlike traditional inpatient settings, residential treatment centers are less clinical while still ensuring round-the-clock support and security.
Holistic, interdisciplinary care is central to residential treatment. Mental health conditions are more than a set of discrete behavioral abnormalities – people struggling with severe mental health issues tend to struggle on a physical, social, and emotional level.
Addressing these symptoms and underlying factors through medication management, individual and group psychotherapy, alternative treatments, long-term family-driven support, social skill building, and other holistic modalities can help teens learn to identify and address symptoms, leverage bespoke schedules and routines to improve mental, physical, and social wellbeing, and recognize when to seek support.
For treatment providers, the aim of a residential treatment program is to help teens transition back into their daily lives as smoothly as possible. Giving teens time to learn how to live with their symptoms in a residential setting can help them continue to manage stressors and apply the tools learned in therapy in their day-to-day life.
Common Mental Health Issues Addressed
Residential treatment may become necessary when outpatient care isn’t enough to meaningfully affect a teen’s mental health. Outpatient programs require teens to attend treatment multiple times a week, on a strict schedule, usually while a teen continues to go to school and live at home. Conditions that might require residential treatment can include:
- Mental health conditions with acute suicidality or self-harm risk, ranging from mood disorders to certain personality disorders.
- Conditions with a high risk of psychosis, such as severe schizophrenia.
- Recurring substance use disorders, especially after a hospitalization.
- Eating disorders with severe physical outcomes.
- Severe anxiety disorders, especially if they impact a teen’s home and school life.
Residential treatment programs are effective when a teen’s condition requires:
- Professional medical and psychiatric supervision.
- Round-the-clock physical and emotional care.
- A significant change in scenery (especially in cases of recurring relapses and severe drug abuse).
- Repeated bouts of suicidal ideation or self-harm without suicidal intent.
- A secure environment where teens can feel safe from harm or any perceived threats, especially in cases of post-traumatic stress, severe anxiety, or psychosis.
Differences Between Outpatient and Residential Treatment
Treatment plans are usually either outpatient or inpatient. Outpatient treatment plans require that a person voluntarily visit a clinic or treatment facility on a scheduled basis. Inpatient treatment plans keep clients within a treatment facility for the duration of the treatment plan, such as during hospitalization or substance use rehabilitation.
Residential treatment is a form of inpatient treatment. In contrast, outpatient treatment plans are sometimes used to help teens transition out of a residential setting back into their day-to-day lives, especially when it’s clear that they need more clinical support to guide them through the early stages of recovery.
For example, teens treated for a substance use disorder might struggle to return to their old life without support, especially if it means returning to reminders of previous substance use episodes. Outpatient treatment, such as a biweekly talk therapy session, can help address these stressors, refresh on effective coping methods, and continue to redirect a teen’s focus towards their personal goals in recovery, such as graduating or aiming towards a specific career path.
Specific outpatient programs that often help teens after residential treatment include intensive outpatient care and partial hospitalization.
Duration and Expectations of Residential Treatment
Most residential treatment programs run between four weeks and six months.
Some programs run longer, but short-term residential care is usually at least 28 days. Some treatment programs release teens based on their progress within the program and mental health outcomes, charging per week. Expectations for a residential treatment program vary depending on the length and goal of the program.
For example, shorter programs may be designed to help teens who have had treatment in the past but are struggling with recurring symptoms or a relapse. Longer programs may include transitionary care in their tail-end, while mid-length or short-term programs redirect teens towards affiliated therapists and support groups for their continuing wellbeing.
Additional Considerations
Choosing the Right Facility
Residential treatment programs may become necessary when teens struggle to manage their mental and physical well-being through outpatient care. However, teens and their families must be careful about selecting the right treatment center.
Residential treatment is as much about the quality of the medical and psychiatric care provided at the facility as it is about the relationships teens form with the staff, their level of comfort within the facility itself, and a teen’s positive expectations for the treatment process. Be sure to choose a facility that your teen feels comfortable with and involve them in the decision-making process.
Transitioning Back Home After Treatment
It’s important to ask the right questions.
How does your chosen residential treatment provider envision your teen’s long-term recovery? Do they continue to support teens outside of residential treatment through a related outpatient program, or are they affiliated with a different treatment provider for continued support? What kind of modalities does the residential treatment process include, and how do they translate into long-term improvements to your teen’s mental and physical well-being? What about academic support during and after treatment?
Set clear expectations for the treatment and long-term recovery outcomes your teen might experience and help clear any worries your teen might have about the treatment process itself.
Teen Residential Treatment at Visions Treatment Center
Residential treatment can pave the way toward long-term recovery for teens with severe mental health issues. Residential treatment may become necessary when other interventions, especially outpatient care, are insufficient. We at Visions Treatment Center focus on helping teens and their families address severe mental health problems through a holistic residential treatment program and intensive, extended care program. In addition to our day school and outpatient programs, we also offer teletherapy services and specialty care for teens with comorbid or complex health problems.
