EBD Blog

Wednesday Social Programs that Work, an organization dedicated to , recognized the Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MFTC) program as having strong evidence of its benefits for youths who have many strongly delinquent behavior problems. The developers of the MTFC program include Patricia Chamberlain, Ph.D., John Reid, Ph.D., Philip A. Fisher, Ph.D., and Gerard Bouwman; they are closely associated with the Oregon Social Learning Center (a long-time resident of EBD Blog’s Web resources list). Over the last ~10 years the researchers have conduct multiple randomized clinical trials testing the intervention, and they have consistently found positive outcomes for the youths and their families.

Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (A foster care intervention for severely delinquent youths)

Randomized controlled trials show sizable reductions in youths’ criminal activity.

Description of the intervention: The Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care program provides severely delinquent youths with foster care in families trained in behavior management, and emphasizes preventing contact with delinquent peers. Typical community treatment for such youth, by contrast, often involves referral to a group care facility with other troubled youth.

As an example of the program’s behavior management techniques, foster parents track and regulate the youths’ behaviors using a point system, with youths receiving points for positive behaviors (e.g., completing chores, attending school regularly), and losing points for negative behaviors (e.g., not completing homework, or not listening to an adult). As youths accumulate more points, they are afforded more freedom from adult supervision.

The program provides the youths and their families with individual and family therapy during their participation in the program, and program case managers closely supervise the youths/families through daily phone calls and weekly foster parent group meetings. The average length of stay in the program is 6-7 months. The average cost is about $3,600 per month (2008 dollars), which is 30 to 50 percent lower than the cost of residential group care (the typical alternative treatment, in which youths are placed in group homes with other offenders, and often provided family therapy.)

Link for the SPTW Web page about the evidence for MFTC (source for the quoted material) and to the Web site that supports adoption of the program.