We often hear the term continuum of care in our young adult independent program industry. It seems like a no-brainer, we want students to have a seamless transition from wherever they are coming from to us and then from us to true independence in their own community. The idea of a young adult being able to use Reset Boston as the place they learn about areas of balance, work toward their goals, and become practiced in self reliant behavior and healthy habits is what it's all about.
At Reset Boston, we are not a clinical program in the strictest sense, in that we do not have a therapist on staff. We are a coaching based model, but we also understand that many of our students also have a therapeutic component to their goals and their time with us. When students arrive here, we encourage them to continue with whatever therapeutic relationships they have in place whenever possible. We feel that continuum of care in this instance means that we try to keep in place services that are proven to be effective and healthy for them, and not to impose our own ideas. We are not requiring them to use our specific therapeutic staff as we don't want them to start all over again with a new mental health team. And while do have therapists and psychiatrists we work with regularly and can highly recommend, they are not on our staff so students are not at all required to leave their current therapist to work with ours.
We have been surprised by how many times we hear that students have had multiple therapists/psychiatrists in the past because every time they have had any mental health service in the past they have gotten assigned a new team. And while we understand that sometimes this necessary, for the young adults who come to us, this feels like the absolute opposite of "continuum" of care.
So we take great care in trying to maintain any therapeutic relationship a student has prior to enrolling in our gap year young adult transition program. Because we want continuity in a student's care. The National Library of Medicine has pointed out in an excellent article that the very definition of "continuum of care" can be a tricky proposition to define. But we think if you just apply a little common sense to the concept and don't insist students go with YOUR therapist, emphasizing a collaborative approach with whom they have already worked with you are going to provide a solid continuum of care.
There are times a student may enroll in Reset Boston and feel they need/could benefit from working with a therapist and do not have an active relationship with any mental health provider. At that point we coach through the necessary steps to find a therapist, assisting them in the search and teaching them how to find a good therapist. To us this is coaching and teaching true resilience. And it's helping the student find a therapist they can feel good about while knowing it's their therapist, not just a program therapist!!