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ViewAttendees 4

Symposia

Prevention

Translational Research Using Community Engaged Methodologies to Promote Positive Youth Development

4 - (SYM 2) Research, Resilience, and Reform: Community-engaged Research Efforts to Improve Care of Youth in Psychiatric Residential Treatment

Friday, November 21, 2025
11:09 AM - 11:30 AM CST
Location: Imperial 12, Level 4
Keywords: Adolescents, Community-Based, Prevention
Recommended Readings: Nixon, C. L., & Linkie, C. A. (2023). Bullying prevention: A developmental, public health framework using trauma-informed and strength-based approaches. In Handbook of anger, aggression, and violence (pp. 1807-1829). Cham: Springer International Publishing.,   Hetzel-Riggin, M. D. (2020). System response to intimate partner violence: Coordinated community response. In Geffner, R., White, J. W., Hamberger, K., Rosenbaum, A., Vaughn-Eden, V., & Veith, V.I. (Eds.), Handbook of Interpersonal Violence Across the Lifespan New York, NY: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62122-7_157-2,   Brown, W. J., Nedelman, A. J., Phillips, W. G., Stankus, J. S., Amoscato, L. E., & Schwartz, E. (2022). Traumatic stress symptoms predict restraint incidents in children and adolescents in psychiatric residential treatment. Journal of traumatic stress, 35(2), 694-705.,   ,  
Abstract Body

Psychiatric residential treatment facilities (PRTFs), often referred to as “residential care,” represent some of the most restrictive mental health service settings and are typically used only when other community-based interventions have proven insufficient. These facilities routinely serve children with significant behavioral health challenges who require a higher level of support. Although PRTFs provide essential care for the most vulnerable youth in the mental health system, research within these settings remains limited in comparison to other youth behavioral health contexts (James, 2017; Lee, 2020). Numerous barriers impede research and implementation of evidence-based practices in PRTFs, including the involvement of vulnerable populations, challenges with obtaining informed consent from guardians, concerns related to resident privacy and confidentiality, and organizational instability (Bailey et al., 2024; Vaskinn et al., 2023).  

Community-engaged research initiatives in PRTFs provide opportunities to navigate these challenges in collaboration with youth residents, facility staff, and organizational administrators, thereby building trust, aligning research efforts with both organizational and community priorities, and ensuring more feasible and ethically sound initiatives. This presentation highlights a series of novel mixed method community-engaged research studies conducted in partnership with a PRTF in the Northeastern United States to improve the quality of services provided to youth residents. The first study identified risk factors of physical restraint incidence from data routinely collected from residents at intake. The second investigated how direct care workers adopt particular caretaking approaches with youth residents based on their behavioral presentation. The final study examined how COVID-19 pandemic restrictions impacted physical restraint incidence, as well as the organizational implementation of a restraint prevention strategy known as Ukeru. Discussion will emphasize community-engaged research strategies used to support each project and subsequent efforts to translate study findings into practice and policy.