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Mass Consumer Satisfaction Team Will Survey Adolescent Services
The quality of psychiatric care for adolescents has historically been overlooked when it comes to evaluating the mental health system. Unfortunately, this particular kind of care is one of the most important of all, and neglecting it can lead to serious consequences in the development of youths. Those of us who have the opportunity to do so must strive to find ways of improving what is right now an inadequate system. At the Massachusetts Consumer Satisfaction Team, Inc., we have, for two years now, been evaluating the level of care among adults. Now we are, for the first time, beginning to give serious thought to the care that adolescents receive. Over the past several months, we have been compiling information from various sources as to what is important in adolescent care. We have researched articles on the subject, and held focus groups with providers, recipients, and even the recipients' parents. Putting together all of the data we have found has been a careful process, and we now have what we expect will be a worthwhile survey for adolescents in either outpatient or day treatment care. Some of the main aspects of care that we are focusing on are the following: Family Involvement A major factor in any adolescent's life is his relationship with his family, and oftentimes the support at home is not what it should be. We believe that addressing this issue without forcefully doing so is an important role of a provider. Our survey has a significant section attempting to understand how and to what ends the clients' families have been involved in treatment. Respect Afforded by The Counselor Many adolescents that we have spoken with do not feel that their counselors see them as intelligent, capable people. In our survey, we attempt to address the issue of a counselor who may not treat the patient with respect, or allow the patient to have choice in his treatment. Confidentiality Oftentimes adolescent counselors will not respect the patient's confidentiality, generally assuming that, because the client is still dependent upon the parents, that the parents have a right to know everything that goes on in therapy. We believe that adolescents should be given the same rights as adults; furthermore, if confidentiality becomes a problem, most adolescents will simply cease to participate. We hope that with this carefully planned survey, we will be able to make a difference in the level of care that adolescents receive. Perhaps sometime in the future, adolescent mental health services will be seen as a virtue, rather than a defect, in the state of mental health services in general. --Brian Roiter
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