What is the Teaching-Family Model?
Teaching-Family Association Overview
Teaching-Family Model Certification
Evidence Based Model of Care
Teaching-Family Association Overview
The Teaching-Family Association was founded in 1975 to provide a framework for the quality of care provided by professionals who use the integrated systems approach of the Teaching-Family Model in the treatment of children, families, and dependent adults. The goals of the Teaching-Family Model are to provide individualized, humane and caring treatment that is family-centered and consumer driven resulting in excellent outcomes for children and families. The Teaching-Family Model provides an organized and systematic approach that informs and evolves best practices at all levels of an organization.
The Teaching-Family Association’s 's mandate is to certify member agencies, recognize and certify high fidelity programs, standardize useful training and evaluation procedures, sponsor and supervise program replication, and provide annual conferences for sharing new material and program development. The Teaching-Family Association is an international organization with certified agencies both in the United States and Canada.
Teaching-Family Model Certification
The Teaching-Family Association is the only entity in North America that defines and implements standards and review procedures related to the actual performance and quality of treatment and serviced delivery systems at all organizational levels. The Teaching-Family Model is a unique approach to human services characterized by clearly defined goals, integrated support systems, and a set of essential elements. As an evidence-based practice, the Teaching-Family Model adheres to a set of standards that have been researched, tested and replicated.
Member agencies are certified in their use and implementation of the Teaching-Family Model. These agencies must undergo a review and certification process tri-annually. The initial and triennial reviews consist of an on-site visit by two or more peer reviewers to observe and review the implementation of treatment and its benefits and to interview staff and consumers. An agency consumer evaluation is also conducted. Referral and funding agents, board members, and individuals receiving services are asked to rate and provide comments about the treatment programs. Findings are summarized and reported to the agency and to the Teaching-Family Association Certification & Ethics Committee.
The annual review involves a self-evaluation and includes a practitioner consumer evaluation but does not include an on-site visit. There is a formal report due to the Teaching-Family Association Certification & Ethics Committee along with an oral presentation designed to stimulate questions and encourage feedback for continuous quality improvement.
Evidence Based Model of Care
The American Psychological Association, the leading organization representing psychology professionals, recently identified the Teaching-Family Model as an evidenced-based practice. On the American Psychological Association “Psychology Matters” website, the Teaching-Family Model is cited as “one of the few evidence-based residential treatment programs for troubled children.” The American Psychological Association determination is not the first national recognition accorded to the Teaching-Family Model. With more than 30 years of studies and results, the Teaching-Family Model is one of the strongest and most studied evidence-based programs available for treatment.
The Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention and the Surgeon General’s Office have both recognized the Model as a strong, evidenced-based solution for treatment programming. The Teaching-Family Model is not only available in residential treatment programs, it has also been used successfully in treatment foster care, home-based treatment, psychiatric institutions and schools. The certification Teaching-Family Association offered to agencies using the Teaching-Family Model validates program quality, and the integrity of the Model, its delivery systems and components. Certification also ensures quality replication enabling the Model to be implemented on a large scale across many different treatment environments with many different client populations.