Compassionate Care
Crestwood’s journey to eliminate the use of coercive treatment started in early 2008 with a two-day training that was focused on creating violence and coercion-free environments. The training was led by Kevin Huckshorn, RN, MSN, ICADC, and Janice LeBel, PhD, both internationally known experts on the topic of restraint reduction and trauma-informed care.
Since the training in 2008, Crestwood has developed an overall corporate plan to assist and support the elimination of the use of coercive treatment, with the ultimate goal of totally eliminating the use of coercive care throughout Crestwood.
These actions by Crestwood are creating a trend of decreased restraints and a greater understanding and awareness of the issues surrounding their use. We have outcomes in coercive treatment resulting in an 91% reduction of the use of restraint and seclusion; in many cases eliminating the use of restraint completely in our locked programs.
Crestwood received a grant from SAMHSA to attend the Effective Use of Peer Programs to Prevent the Use of Seclusion and Restraints Conference in Boston. Crestwood was recognized at the training as one of the leaders nationally on reducing seclusion and restraint throughout the organization. Our level of seclusion and restraint for similar programs was one third the national average. Crestwood is also working on incorporating trauma-informed approaches into each program, using WRAP principles in correlation with trauma-informed approaches to create antecedent plans for clients and for staff.
In 2013 this effort continued as Crestwood was awarded a SAMHSA-sponsored training on Integration of Trauma-Informed Care in our programs, with goals of creating a coercive-free environment.
In 2015 Crestwood has reduced restraints by more than 91% and has been recognized by SAMHSA for this outcome. In March 2015 Crestwood was recognized by CARF for the elimination of coercive treatment in many of our programs.