Youth Care

caya

2 months ago

★★★★★

If you care , why youth care? Making youth scared since 1999 Programs that have harmed young people cannot be allowed to continue without accountability. Survivors are speaking out, advocates are pushing for reform, and the voices that were ignored for too long are finally being heard. Thank you to advocates like Meg Applegate and organizations like Unsilenced for helping bring attention to the experiences of survivors. Youth Care is next. The focus must be on protecting children, listening to survivors, and holding adults accountable when they fail to protect the young people in their care. The era of silence is ending. Children deserve safety, dignity, and a voice.

Brian

3 months ago

★★★★★

I will rate Youth Care 4 stars. It was the first place that our daughter made progress after a combination of other placements -residential and hospitals and thus it gets a good rating. I will highlight the strengths and also some concerns , which prevent a 5 star. Our child's therapist, Melissa was incredible - she is experienced, compassionate, and an excellent communicator who always had our daughter's best interests in mind and was always willing to advocate for her. It is clear how deeply she cares and she is REALLY skilled. The financial office did well while navigating the insurance company side of things. There was a thoughtful discharge plan put in place that allowed our daughter to transition safely, first to day treatment, and then all the way home. The continuity of therapist was maintained, which is really crucial. The staff seemed largely to be very compassionate and our daughter spoke positively of most of them. A few of them really went above and beyond to support our daughter when she was really struggling and they never gave up on her. The parent support group was helpful for me and better than others I've been to. Now. a  few troubling things: Brighton, the most "secure"of the 4 houses, was extraordinarily chaotic and not a therapeutic environment. It was way too much chaos for kids like my daughter who get stressed when overstimulated. When there, it was hard for our daughter to get to make her (required by law) confidential calls and often had to wait unreasonably long to use the bathroom especially when menstruating due to insufficient staff. Despite it being the most secure, our daughter AWOL'd (while other students,unrelatedly,caused chaos), and nobody knew where she was for HOURS. It was terrifying and should not have happened. Finally During "Parent Days", an adult relative of another student, clearly was looking to start physical conflict with another adult relative of the same child during a group session. Fortunately, no children got hurt but some were seemingly pretty traumatized. It is fortunate that neither adult brandished a gun, given that they do not check visitors for weapons. I suggested that they start to do so, and it doesn't sound like they plan to. Regardless, this could have turned out badly and this person should not have been present in the first place. All in all, we are so glad that our EC recommended Youth Care. They took great care of our daughter and we are so thrilled she's doing better and owe a ton of gratitude to Melissa and the staff. The most important part of this review is how effective her treatment was. They DO need to fix some things though to prevent what could result in tragic outcomes. Despite the issues, which seem to exist everywhere, I would still highly recommend Youth Care (but good to know what to watch out for and ask about).

Gwen Laws

6 months ago

★★★★★

Youth Care is an amazing facility, with wonderful, compassionate therapists and staff. They care for and keep safe a population of adolescents that cannot be kept safe anywhere else. Those who work at Youth Care and have chosen to stay long-term are completely dedicated to those adolescents and their families, despite the stress level under which they are required to operate every day. I would recommend Youth Care to any parents with a child in crisis. It is a difficult choice to place your child in residential treatment, and if you know you have no other choice, Youth Care is an option.

Tim Robert

6 months ago

★★★★★

Youth Care is full of compassionate and skilled caregivers and I am so grateful for the help my daughter received in their time there. It was very challenging for them and but they learned a lot of DBT skills, specifically distress tolerance, emotional regulation and interpersonal effectiveness, all of which have resulted in them being in a much better state of mind, with a much more positive outlook on life. As parents, we had to put a lot of time and effort in, in terms of participating in weekly remote family therapy and parent coaching, as well as traveling to visit our daughter, but I'm sure all of that helped and it was well worth it. In particular, I'm extremely grateful for the efforts of our daughter's individual therapist, who was so invested in our daughter's progress and genuinely cared about our daughter's well being.

AJ Bermudez

8 months ago

★★★★★

Youth care helped me substantially, thanks to the staff! I made close connections there as well. HOWEVER If you are a parent looking to send your kid here PLEASE consider starting with a lower level of care or shorter term placement. This place while it can be helpful, is very restrictive and chaotic. My experience was constant fights, awol attempts, and stripped of many things. Again this can be helpful in some cases, and honestly in mine but if you don't believe your kid needs an ankle monitor or sensors in their rooms please reconsider. I love everyone at Youth Care with all my heart and am super grateful!! The team is very supportive and many staff did what they could to do nice things for the kids which I always appreciated.