Our program is 100% voluntary. Our treatment can only be successful when clients have at least a minimal investment in working on some aspect on their mental health. If your child is resistant, we encourage you to schedule a walkthrough appointment. This will allow you and your child to tour the facility, have your questions answered by a member of our staff, and determine if our program is a good fit for your child’s needs.

Typically, no. Our program is most effective when clients attend at least one full week of PHP, which gives them access to both the didactic group and group therapy. We use the 3-hour IOP primarily as an internal step-down to help our clients transition towards discharge. In rare cases, we start clients in the IOP, but only if our clinicians determine at intake that IOP is the appropriate level of care.

Average length of stay is 15 days for PHP and 10 days for IOP, but this can vary considerably based on your child’s needs. Clients must meet medical necessity for our program, and most insurance plans require prior authorization for PHP and IOP treatment, which we handle. We provide parents/guardians with as much advance notice as possible regarding length of stay, step-down to IOP, and discharge dates. However, please be aware that we often only know a few days in advance, due to the nature of insurance authorizations for this level of care.

No. Because we are a short-term stabilization program, it is not beneficial for your child to become overly attached to any one staff member. If your child does not already have an outpatient individual therapist, we strongly encourage you to find one, and we are happy to provide referrals. It is very helpful to have this in place before your child discharges from our program, to ensure a smooth transition and provide for continuing care.

We welcome your involvement! Shortly after intake, your child’s clinician will contact you to schedule an initial meeting to go over your child’s safety plan and treatment plan. They will also meet with you prior to discharge, to help ensure a smooth transition and review next steps. If you wish to schedule additional family meetings during treatment, reach out to your child’s clinician by email (which is preferred) or by phone. Please note that we are not currently offering the weekly Parent Group.

Within your child’s first few days of treatment at Endurance, a clinician will meet with you briefly to go over your child’s safety plan and treatment plan. You will be asked to review and sign off on both documents, and you will be given copies to bring home. We will also reach out to schedule a discharge meeting, at which time we will review your child’s discharge summary, safety plan, and future treatment goals. If we have safety concerns at any time during your child’s treatment, a staff member will reach out to you immediately and, if necessary, refer you for a crisis evaluation.

For urgent concerns, please call the front desk. For less urgent matters, email is preferred. Staff email addresses are available in the client and parent program handbooks.

No. Our Nurse Practitioners can prescribe for clients while they are in our program, but they are not available to prescribe on an outpatient basis after clients have discharged, If your child does not currently have an outpatient psychiatric prescriber, we encourage you to start looking for one as soon as possible, and we can assist you with referrals. Be aware that it can often take several months to get an intake with a new psychiatric prescriber.

During the time between our structured groups, your child will participate in our therapeutic milieu and receive in vivo coaching from our staff. This will help them practice the skills to develop and maintain healthy interpersonal relationships, and learn to manage common stressors in new ways. Please see the page “Our Program” for details about our treatment model and program structure.

Although this is of course possible, we feel certain that few things occur at Endurance that are new to any given member, or that they are not likely to experience in any number of settings outside the program. One truly new experience we can assure all members is the powerfully pro-social environment in which things occur, and the powerful, non-violent pressures that encourage practice of more healthy habits.

The overall benefit of friendships developed at Endurance is a matter of individual assessment. Endurance empowers parents to make all decisions regarding their children’s peer group.

Everyone at Endurance, both clients and staff, are committed to following our guidelines. If your child is restricted, it means that they have violated those guidelines in some way. If this happens, an Endurance staff member will meet with you and your child to discuss the specifics of the situation. Once restricted, a client may not return to the program until having a reintegration meeting with our staff. At that time, it will be determined if your child will be able to continue the program and, if so, what steps they must take in order to do so.

Updated 1/9/2020: Please note that we are unable to offer transportation at this time. If you have Well Sense or MassHealth insurance, you may be eligible for free transportation to and from our office through your insurance.

Endurance will be closed on the following holidays:

• New Year’s Day
• Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
• Memorial Day
• Fourth of July
• Labor Day
• Indigenous Peoples’ Day
• Thanksgiving Day
• Day after Thanksgiving
• Christmas Eve
• Christmas Day

 

Endurance is open all year, during the summer as well as school vacations.

During winter storms, we may close the office and transition the full program online, to maintain the safety of our clients and staff. We try to give families as much advance notice as possible for planning purposes. You will receive a notification by email and/or phone if we need to temporarily transition your child to online treatment.