President and CEO, Keller Strother, reflects on the past two decades
In 20 years, we’ve accomplished a lot—200,000 families worldwide have been helped by MST. That’s an incredible feat We have spread MST to 34 states and 15 countries. Are we proud of what we have accomplished? Yes, without question. Is there a lot more to do? You bet.
The MST Services team in Chicago in June 2016
We are striving to change the status quo. The treatment of children in need in the United States can be barbaric. Don’t take my word for it. Rent the “Kids for Cash” documentary from Amazon or Netflix, if you want to see why we at MST Services are working so hard to keep kids out of the juvenile-justice system.
There are, however, some glimmers of hope that change is in the wind. Recently, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that sentencing a juvenile to life without parole is unconstitutional. A set of unlikely allies—including the billionaire Koch brothers and Newt Gingrich on the conservative side; President Obama and the McArthur Foundation on the liberal—are calling for criminal justice reform. Some states are considering raising the age when a juvenile is considered an adult.
These are steps in the right direction—but they are nevertheless baby steps. What I would like to see in the next 20 years is a great leap forward with evidence-based treatment models like MST becoming the standard of care for children with serious clinical needs.
So, happy birthday, MST Services and congratulations on all the good work that’s been done. Now, let’s keep working to make MST and programs like it the norm in helping troubled teens, rather than the exception.
To learn what makes Multisystemic Therapy so successful, download this white paper.
