The heart of in-home therapy is the Intensive Therapeutic Intervention that enhances both the well-being of the youth and the capacity of caregivers to provide a safe and supportive environment for the youth and family. The therapeutic intervention consists of the strategies and actions most likely to promote healing, strength, and lasting change. High-quality interventions make every meeting count with specific purposes for each session, plans for conducting sessions, a clear correlation between the session plan and treatment plan goals, and actions to practice between sessions. They use strengths in real and tangible ways to address needs. Family reports of both improvements and setbacks directly inform next steps, as do collateral perspectives and direct observation by the IHT team. Therapeutic intervention is a live process of discovering what works with a specific youth and family in their own context.

CONTRIBUTION TO THE OUTCOME: Intensive therapeutic intervention serves the overall purpose of in-home therapy: to enhance the family’s capacity to understand its own and the youth’s needs and to make changes that promote healthy functioning. Interventions embody CBHI’s values of child-centered and family-driven services when they respond to the priorities of the youth and family, and are developed in partnership with families. Effective interventions build on the strengths of the family and its community; they are responsive to the family’s values, beliefs, and norms, and to socioeconomic and cultural context. By integrating services across agencies and programs, interventions support collaboration. Both the IHT practitioners and the system as a whole strive to improve continuously as interventions unfold and adapt.