With the primary goal of preparing students to function in a less restrictive setting and eventually return to the community, Hillcrest Educational Centers is committed to working collaboratively with student families. Our work is guided by the philosophy that it is in the best interest of children to grow up in a context of a caring family whether that is the child’s natural family or non-related or “elected” family. We also believe that if given the necessary guidance and skills, families have the capacity to work through traumatic experience and provide competent and non-abusive parenting.
This goal can best be accomplished by creating a collaborative atmosphere that invites families to become active and supportive members of their child’s treatment, respects family belongingness in the context of major stress, welcomes cultural differences, appreciates the impact of socio-economic factors on family functioning and promotes the courage to change in our mutual struggle to improve the quality of our students’ lives.

“Family work” at Hillcrest will thus specifically include:

• Facilitating the engagement of families during the entire course of a child’s treatment.
• Assessing family strengths and resources needed to ameliorate trauma and salient referral problems.
  Promoting re-unification or “step-down” to a less restrictive setting.
• Developing increased opportunities for therapeutic contact within the family, community and residential milieus.
•  Providing educational forums to enhance awareness of issues that impact on child-family functioning and creating a support network with families, advocates and funding agencies.
• Promoting family contact via use of telephone and other multimedia tools including video conferencing social networking media.
• Providing opportunities for skill development in the family home as well as family therapy on campus.
• Ensuring the family is educated on the specifics of behavior procedures being used with their child, and also ensuring that the Behavior Support Plan is well explained and parents are able to implement the Behavior Support Plan when the ABA treatment approach is used with our students.