Network Partner Conference offers chance to step back and see how far MST has come, and how far we have yet to go
A picture of a long and winding road. It resonated with attendees at the opening of the 2016 MST Network Partnership Conference when executive vice president and clinical director of MST Services, Lisa Reiter, showed one. Many participants sitting in the audience, myself included, have been a part of that long and winding journey that took Multisystemic Therapy from a university-based research treatment model into the real world.
As I looked across the room, one person caught my eye. I noticed Dr. Scott Henggeler sitting in the front row. Dr. Henggeler is one of the original developers of MST. Working at the Medical University of South Carolina in the early 1990s, he helped devise a treatment that addressed the needs of the juvenile justice population. In those days, this population wasn’t given much hope as it was frequently said, "There is no effective treatment to change the trajectory of their lives." With his colleagues of early days, doctors Sonja Schoenwald, Melissa Rowland, Charles Borduin and Phillippe Cunningham, Dr. Henggeler set out to prove there was hope by creating a treatment that would eventually touch the lives of more than 200,000 families worldwide and counting. The first curves of the winding road were just being laid out. I cannot imagine that at the time, these pioneers knew how winding the road ahead would be or that so many would join them in the journey.
Thirty years of taking the model from research to the real world
Fast forward 30 years. We are still traveling that curvy road, and we continue to learn what it takes to sustain and grow an evidence-based treatment model in the real world. The conference reminded all of us why we do this thing called MST and how we can do it better. We have a passion for families. We have a passion for youth. We have a passion for making their lives better. We have a passion for seeing fewer kids incarcerated every year and for seeing those very young people become good citizens.
At this year’s conference, we learned that the road is nowhere near ending. We continue to develop adaptations of the model to ensure other populations—for instance, youths with problems relating to substance abuse, child abuse and neglect, problem sexual behavior—have an effective evidence-based treatment that changes their lives. It is fair to say we are proud of what we do, but more importantly, we want to stay on this journey together, to get better at everything we do. We want to join with families who find themselves caught on a curvy road of life not knowing where to turn—to help them find their path forward. We want to join with communities spending taxpayer dollars on treatments that don’t work—and sometimes do more harm than good. We want to join with stakeholders and community leaders who want more for their constituents. Our hope is to join with others to navigate the turns ahead because ultimately, isn’t all of life a winding road? It’s with whom you go on the journey that makes it count.
I walked away from the conference feeling energized about the work we do and the work ahead, thinking to myself, "Give me the keys, we are just getting started!"
Laura Shortt is a Manager of Network Partnerships at MST Services.
To learn more about what makes MST an effective intervention for at-risk youth, download this white paper.
