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At The Buckeye Ranch, our mission is to raise hope and provide healing for children, youth, and families across Ohio through behavioral health, mental health, education, and child welfare support services. The Buckeye Ranch’s Intensive Family Support Program (IFSP) is one of our six Community-Based Mental Health Services programs that are designed to work with children, their families, and members of the community in their homes, schools, and locations that are in their community to reduce concerning mental health symptoms while helping those clients meet their own unique goals and plans. 

But what exactly is IFSP? John is here to help you learn more: 

IFSP is an evidence-informed program that supports youth who need intensive mental health intervention.   

The program focuses on healing mental health challenges while promoting positive development and healthy family functioning to ensure youth can blossom into who they were meant to be in our community.  

Youth ages 5-18 are supported by the Intensive Family Support Program (IFSP), and the program is flexible in length, typically lasting six to nine months based on the young person’s needs. Buckeye Ranch team members are trained in psychiatric supportive treatment, mental health assessment, and crisis response to support families at every point in their healing journey throughout the duration of the program.  

The Family Component of the Intensive Family Support Program

Intensive Family Support Program (IFSP) treatment interventions work to support youth in their own healing journeys through a Trauma-Informed Care approach and an Integrative Family and Systems Treatment (I-FAST) model. To help treat youth withing the context of their own home, family, and community, The Buckeye Ranch adheres to the I-FAST approach in our home- and office-based programs, like IFSP. I-FAST is a strengths-based approach with the goal of reducing out-of-home placements and is organized around elements common in successful evidence-based models of treatment. IFSP offers in-home therapy sessions with family members 1-3 times each week that deploy these approaches to heal the youth’s family system. 

At The Buckeye Ranch, we know healing looks different for everyone. Our clinicians take a trauma-informed care approach to therapeutics, ensuring that each member of the family understands the ‘why’ behind behaviors and mental health challenges to heal.

Recent advances in brain science are changing how behavioral health professionals understand the challenges in working with children, youth, and families who display severe mental and behavioral health challenges. At The Buckeye Ranch, we incorporate the latest, most effective methods into our care, including the developmentally-sensitive Neurosequential Model. 

Team members cannot fully understand a client’s behaviors without an understanding of the profound effect of early childhood trauma. There is now overwhelming scientific evidence showing how healthy development can be derailed when children experience excessive and ongoing stress.  

That’s where trauma informed therapy comes in. It is safe to assume that most, if not all, of the children, youth, and families in our services have experienced significant trauma in their lives. Recognizing this allows The Buckeye Ranch to approach children, youth, and families with a curiosity of “what happened to you” as opposed to “what is wrong with you.” We know that families are resilient and have strengths and resources that can be used in building solutions and achieving client change. 

This approach helps IFSP clinicians support youth in their healing journeys, while helping family members heal their own traumas along the way. When the entire family unit is brought along in the healing process, it ensures that the youth in treatment is set up with a solid support system to ensure long-term success after completing the IFSP program. 

What Can Youth and Families Expect from the Program? 

Families being supported by IFSP can also expect to be guided by The Buckeye Ranch’s four principles of quality care: 

1. Taking a Strengths-Based lens to care plans. The youth and families in services at The Buckeye Ranch have a great number of strengths that tend to go unnoticed due to the significance of their conditions and/or challenging behaviors. Our team members know that although youth and families are often connected to us as a result of problems they have experienced, focusing primarily on those problems does not lead to substantial and lasting positive change. Taking a Strengths-Based approach to care plans allows us to focus on how our families learn and grow best so they can develop their strengths and make lasting, positive strides in their healing journeys. 

2. Having a Family-Centered perspective on healing. The Buckeye Ranch’s ultimate goal in every program is to help youth and families in treatment be successful in the community and build healthy relationships in a family setting. Most youth we support have had troubling relationships with their families, but we know that youth fare much better over time if they can strengthen and heal familial bonds. Whether biological or chosen family, our team supports youth in care with repairing family connections in their treatment plans, prioritizing family voice and choice throughout treatment.

3.Being Culturally Responsive in our understanding of youth and families. Our team works with youth and families representing a wide variety of cultural heritages, practices, and values. To create a safe healing environment, team members implement culturally responsive services that incorporate the knowledge and unique cultural experiences of all individuals that we serve by placing a high value on respecting diverse cultures. We continually work to enhance our ability to respect and effectively serve everyone in our community by striving to honor and respect the beliefs, languages, interpersonal styles, and behaviors of individuals receiving support from our programs. To do so, we train team members in cultural awareness and are committed to ongoing training to increase awareness of every team member’s cultural assumptions and implicit bias. 

4. Providing a Trauma-Informed Care treatment approach. Our team at The Buckeye Ranch realizes that the youth and families we support have often gone through significant traumas in their lives, often while very young. This trauma can result in manifestations of unpredictable behaviors that are misunderstood by the community. Our team focuses on Trauma-Informed Care, prioritizing a curiosity about these behaviors to understand root causes and help youth and families overcome their experiences — together. 

How The Buckeye Ranch’s Continuum of Care Ensures Healing for Youth Supported by the Intensive Family Support Program 

During IFSP program treatment, clinicians work with youth and their families to provide the support needed to heal. Every treatment plan is tailored to the specific needs of every youth and their surrounding family members. Sometimes while in one program, such as IFSP, a clinician may observe that another program at The Buckeye Ranch may be supportive for a family’s healing. In these instances, our team members support linkage to any of the 17 other programs within The Buckeye Ranch’s continuum of care during IFSP program involvement or after discharge. 

This could include another Community-Based Mental Health Program, an Education-Based Mental Health program, an Intergrated Care Services program, a Child Welfare Services program, or even a Residential Treatment Services program, if needed. Whatever is in store for the youth after discharge, The Buckeye Ranch will continue to be a resource through every step of their healing journey. 

To learn more about The Buckeye Ranch’s IFSP program, visit our website. You can learn more about our other five Community-Based Mental Health Services programs here. To inquire about services with The Buckeye Ranch or make a referral click here, or call us directly at 614-875-2371 for more information.