Inpatient or Outpatient? How to Find and Evaluate Adolescent Treatment
FIVE THINGS TO REMEMBER ABOUT TREATMENT FOR TEENS
- 1. Relapse is common. Most kids go to treatment 2-4 times before they are able to sustain recovery.
- 2. Learn to recognize the signs of relapse (spending time with using friends, breaking rules, staying out,
inattention, anger, poor hygiene, declining grades) and get kids back into treatment and on the road
to recovery right away.
- 3. Helping your adolescent to participate in continuing care and other recovery support services during
the first 90 days after treatment (and ideally the first year) is a key factor in helping them to sustain
- 4. While treatment is focused on getting an addicted person to stop, self-help groups, recovery schools
and other recovery support services are typically designed to help continue recovery. It is important to
try to put adolescents in post-treatment, or aftercare, services that have other adolescents - not just
- 5. Most adolescents are seen in an outpatient setting a couple of hours a week. Residential treatment is
usually reserved for adolescents who are not making it in outpatient treatment and/or who have an
environment (peers, home) that is making it very difficult for them to stop.