Improving Quality at Therapeutic Boarding Schools

Every year Telos does a comprehensive review of all of the available data from the year including all progress monitoring and outcome data. It also includes feedback surveys from parents, students, and staff regarding the Telos experience and the service provided. All of this valuable information is reviewed by the leadership team and used to discuss necessary improvements which are added to the annual strategic plan and evaluated throughout the year for successful implementation.

Quality Improvement

Telos is dedicated to the highest quality of treatment for our students. This requires accurate and timely measurement of company wide trends. This data is continually collected and is compiled and analyzed at the end of each year. In addition, the leadership team sends out surveys to parents, students, and staff to identify areas of needed improvement to ensure safety, effective treatment, and to create a healthy therapeutic environment.

These reviews cover a wide array of topics including, nursing, milieu staff, therapy, food, facilities, program design, school, family days seminars, activities budgets, peer culture, psychiatry, communication, sports, life coaching, transitional and aftercare services, and many more.

Each year the leadership team holds an annual strategic planning conference to review all of this data and to make strategic goals for program improvement. This is followed up on throughout the coming year and reviewed for effectiveness.

Figure 6: An example of how data from standardized surveys is used to identify areas for clinical improvement. This represents a review of the Family Assessment Device GF. It measures family progress including looking at Parent and self report as well as question by question improvements or areas of continued struggle that need to better be addressed in therapy. This research led to a goal for the entire clinical team to improve family therapy by giving more direct training and support to families needing to address conflict rather avoid it.