Psychologist finds great alternative for youth with Multisystemic Therapy

As a young clinical psychologist, fresh out of graduate school working for a private community mental-health agency, I was referred to a 16-year-old white male for an “evaluation and assessment.”  The evaluation and assessment is common task in the child-serving system. Though it has different names, different funding streams and can be performed at a myriad of points in the process, it is always done for the same basic reason: to receive an expert’s opinion on what next steps should be taken in a child’s care. For the young man before me, it wasn’t quite clear what that step should be.