Waikato Intensive Clinical Services
The ICS Waikato team is based in Hamilton and practices Multi-systemic Therapy (MST), a community based, intensive model of working with families/whaanau, typically lasting for 20 weeks.
The Programme
The service seeks to help the families/whaanau of young people with severe behavioural problems. Accordingly, the service is provided in the home of a young person and works with them and their family, utilising structured MST interventions.
The use of MST empowers family/whaanau with the skills and resources needed to independently address the difficulties that arise in raising teenagers. It consequently empowers youth to cope with family, peer, school and neighbourhood issues.
A mobile intervention team, made up of clinicians, a supervisor and a consultant psychiatrist, is on call 24 hours a day as required, to provide families/whaanau with guidance on managing problematic behaviours as they arise.
A Service with a Difference
This service differs from other, clinic based services, in that problems are addressed in the home of the young person and in local community settings. This provides families/ whaanau with the ability to cope with issues in the contexts/ environments in which they occur.
The programme is modeled on the belief that the most successful interventions are generally those that provide meaningful support to a young person’s family/whaanau and to wider social networks.
The family/whaanau of a troubled adolescent are therefore treated as the primary targets for interventions, rather than focusing on the young person. Families/whaanau are provided with practical, sustainable solutions to overcome issues that serve as barriers to behavioural change.
Participants
Young people involved with this programme will be children up to 17 years of age. They will have serious mental health problems and will typically be involved with Child, Youth and Family as well as Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services or Hauora Waikato.
For more information please contact Vivienne Martin (Programme Manager) on 07 838 3671 x 309 / 021 844 939or at viviennem@youthorizons.org.nz