Highridge Family Center

About the Program

Category: Children and Youth (Best in Category)

Year: 2018

• Highridge Family Center is a 60-bed residential facility serving youth between 11 and 16 who reside in Palm Beach County. The families seeking services through Highridge have been struggling with conflicted family relations, poor academics, disruptive school behavior, drug experimentation, poor peer group choices, minor law infractions, and emotional difficulties. • With contemporary research accentuating the impact of past traumatic experiences on long-term health and educational outcomes as well as the importance of a nonviolent, compassionate, healing environment for individuals seeking mental health treatment, Highridge Family Center initiated a three-year process to offer certified trauma informed care in our residential facility. • Embracing and implementing this model includes three years of intensive training, reflection, and coordination within the organization and with its clients. The goal of trauma informed care is to build a respectful organizational culture so that youth—and those who work with them—are able to feel safe, and therefore flourish, while both staff and clients avoid being subject to burnout and retraumatization. • Program outcomes include increased completion rates, increased family satisfaction rates, enhanced staff communication, increased training and knowledge in trauma theory, and positive treatment outcomes. • Highridge Family Center is the only facility in Palm Beach County offering these services with fidelity and adherence to a specific evidence supported model of care.