Core Element Overview

The Team engages in an ongoing process of relationship building with the youth and their family members to collaborate on shared goals for treatment. Engagement is conducted through respectful curiosity about individual and family strengths, needs, and culture.

It involves empathy, careful listening, sensitivity, humor, and compassion and establishes an expectation of shared decision making in which the youth and families’ voice, experiences, and opinions are prioritized and are persistently sought and validated. It demonstrates mutual engagement: that you are where you want to be—with this family at this time—and ready to give full attention. Engagement is a critical aspect across the Team’s essential functions, not just at a point in time, and takes into account youth and family readiness for change and meets them where they’re at.

Resources & Tools