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Residential Services

Walker Intensive Residential Treatment Program

The Walker Intensive Residential Treatment Program (IRTP) was created to help high-risk, multiply-complex children and their families build social, emotional, and behavioral competencies so they may achieve and maintain a permanent family connection while preventing the damage of serial placement disruptions. The Walker IRTP is a nationally accredited, fully licensed and Chapter 766-approved program that serves children between the ages of 5 and 13 who can be maintained in a staff-secure group setting.

We have carefully designed the Walker IRTP as a competence- and education-focused helping community, not a hospital. Even so, over the past several years we have steadily increased our capacity to stabilize, assess and care for young children with extreme behavioral instability and developmental complexity. Many children arrive at Walker with a history of multiple placements, chronic mental illness, developmental disorders (including autism-spectrum disorders), language disorders, learning disabilities, experience with severe trauma, abuse and neglect, chronic medical and neurological disorders, and high-risk behaviors that have precluded them from full community participation. In fact, many children admitted at Walker arrive with two or more of these presenting difficulties.

An assessment by a multi-disciplinary team of Walker professionals often helps solve diagnostic puzzles by reconciling conflicting previous diagnoses; the Walker team can determine the “triggers” for a child’s violent or self-destructive behavior and the impediments to their academic achievement, resulting in appropriate and attainable treatment goals.

The work of the Walker IRTP does not focus on erasing deficits or making children and families “not sick”. Rather, we seek to understand how a child’s development has shaped his or her strengths, weaknesses and unique learning style. We work to provide autonomous opportunities for children and families to practice new behavior, “teaching moments” where they to learn to exercise control over themselves and gain an increased understanding of their specific challenges.

The Walker IRTP has been designed to seamlessly integrate child-focused and family-centered clinical work to produce optimum opportunity for a viable permanent placement. The program stresses safety and behavioral stabilization, as well as skill development in academics. Social competency development focuses on self-care, communication, recreational and play skills, and other skills necessary for participation in community activities and family life. The Walker IRTP staff is committed to working collaboratively with families, schools, and partner agencies toward the goal of home reunification or discharge to a less restrictive community placement; the Walker team provides case coordination and assessment that will produce concrete recommendations for discharge planning.

Walker Behavioral Treatment Residence

The Walker Behavioral Treatment Residence (BTR) is designed to help very high-risk children and their families build social, emotional, and behavioral competencies so they may achieve and maintain a permanent family connection while preventing the damage of serial placement disruptions. The Walker BTR is built on the platform of Walker’s existing intensive residential treatment program but allows children to continue to attend school in their communities while receiving treatment in residence at the Walker Needham campus. The Walker BTR is available both 5 and 7 days per week to accommodate the maximum feasible connection to family and community.

The Walker BTR program stresses safety and behavioral stabilization, as well as social competency areas such as self-care, communication, recreational, and play skills—skills necessary for participation in community activities and family life. The Walker BTR staff is committed to working collaboratively with families, schools, professional colleagues, and community partners toward the goal of home reunification or discharge to a less restrictive community placement. For each student, the Walker team will produce concrete recommendations for discharge planning and can also provide case coordination and assessment.

Community-Based Acute Treatment

Community-Based Acute Treatment (CBAT) is a hospital-diversion program specifically designed to provide short-term emergency stabilization support to children between the ages of three and ten years old who are actively in severe emotional and behavioral crisis. The program accommodates girls and boys, and offers an alternative to psychiatric hospitalization that is less costly and often more clinically appropriate.

Created in response to the increasing number of very young children requiring crisis care, as well as the increasing severity and complexity of their presenting difficulties, the Walker CBAT offers short-term, multidisciplinary services designed to:

  • stabilize young children in crisis who might otherwise be serially placed in developmentally inappropriate hospital settings
  • provide thorough clinical assessments and diagnostic services
  • facilitate the child’s return to home or a transition to an appropriate therapeutic environment
  • provide follow-up support, including the availability of diverse family and support services
  • administer psychological testing, when appropriate, to clarify diagnostic issues

The Walker CBAT also offers assessment and diagnostic services through the Massachusetts Department of Social Services, the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, and public school systems.

Respite Care

Walker Respite is available for children between the ages of 5 and 13, and is designed to meet the special needs of children with high-risk behaviors, complex behavioral issues, mental illness, or developmental disabilities. Walker Respite is for children who require the support of a highly specialized and therapeutic environment and for whom respite care by extended family or foster family respite is not appropriate.

As these children typically require a high level of vigilant adult supervision and support, their needs can place enormous strain on a family or foster family. For struggling families, the availability of planned or emergency respite services can play a critical role in reducing or preventing out of home placement. Walker Respite was created to support families and allow high-risk and behaviorally complex children to live at home and remain in their communities.

Walker Campus-Based Respite provides children with structured and therapeutic recreational activities while enabling parents and other family members to have a “break” from the intensive demands of caring for a child with complex special needs. For the child, a weekend or school vacation respite program provides the necessary structure to keep the child “out of trouble” in the community or at home. In addition, the child can benefit from the structured recreational activities—opportunities for developing improved social skills, cooperating with unfamiliar peers, and learning to form new friendships.

Walker In-Home Respite is primarily a child care service provided by a Walker outreach worker in the family home and is designed to be used as a short-term or transitional intervention until other accommodations for adequate long-term child care can be explored and consistently arranged. In-Home Respite can be a particularly useful service component of a child’s planned transition home, after time spent in a residential placement. In-Home Respite workers can be available to care for a child in his or her home with a wide variety of flexible schedule arrangements. This service can be used on an occasional basis or on a fixed schedule for a limited period. Families utilizing In-Home Respite may also access Walker’s 24-hour on-call service at any time, if needed. A social worker is able to advise parents on how to manage a crisis situation, and if necessary, help to facilitate emergency Campus-Based Respite or other placement.

Residential Treatment Support Services

Clients of Walker Intensive Residential Treatment and the Behavioral Treatment Residence can utilize home-based and outreach support through Walker Family and Community Integration Services (FCIS). A variety of psychiatric services are also available to families through Walker’s affiliation with Family and Community Solutions and the outpatient clinic of the Brighton-Allston Mental Health Association.