THE AUGUST
AICHHORN CENTER
for
ADOLESCENT RESIDENTIAL CARE, Inc.
our programs ideas and issues alumni page join us contact us as others see us--links
An Introduction -- Who We Are and What's In This Site
Welcome to the home page of the August Aichhorn Center. The Aichhorn Center was organized as a not-for-profit corporation in New York State in 1977 to serve, to study and to teach about the special problems of providing long-term care and treatment to teenagers who were "unplaceable" in any existing facilities except State hospitals or correctional institutions.
The Aichhorn Center currently operates three
residential service programs: two Residential
Treatment Facilities (RTFs) and a Young Adult Support Living
program, (YASL), as well as the Aichhorn School, located in the
RTFs. The RTF-Manhattan and the YASL program are located in
the Manhattan Valley neighborhood near Central Park and Columbia
University, in New York City. The RTF-Brooklyn is
located in the Weeksville section of Brooklyn.
For more information about various aspects of these programs,
please go to our programs.
We want to use our operating programs as models for development and testing of various organizational and instructional ideas. We are eager to share what we have learned, what we believe will work or not work in the future, and our thoughts and questions about unresolved issues in residential care--including whether it has any place at all in the range of psychiatric services for teenagers. We post discussions of various current issues in the section on ideas and issues. Currently, this section contains summaries, and links to more complete discussions on maintaining safety in the RTF (a topic made timely by the several serious attacks on at various facilities), follow-up of residents discharged from the RTF, and Federal regulations on the use of "seclusion" and "restraint" in residential treatment facilities. In operating our programs, we place great emphasis on encouraging free discussion among staff and residents. This is important partly because we want to encourage verbal rather than physical disagreement, and partly because we genuinely believe that we do not yet have definitive answers to many problems in our field, and we can actually learn from each other. In that spirit, we are also very interested in responses to our ideas from interested people we have not yet met. If you have a comment or question about our comments, we would be very glad to hear from you. We are currently still developing this web site, and particularly welcome any ideas on areas that should be included. If you are looking for something here that you don't find, please let us know.
If you are interested in working directly with us, please check
the join us section. We post
there specific positions we may be seeking to fill at any time, as
well as some notes on general categories of applicants we are
always interested in meeting. To inquire further or comment
on any aspect of our presentation here, or if you want to reach
any particular person or department at Aichhorn for any reason,
please check the contact us section.
LINKS -- Aichhorn as
others see us New York Magazine ran a brief article on
the Aichhorn Center and our RTF in June, 1999.
http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/health/bestdoctors/features/589
Dr. Michael Pawel, Aichhorn's Executive Director, questioned a
review entitled "Killer Children," in a letter published by The
New York Review in December, 1999.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/288
Fox Butterfield, discussing mentally ill teenagers in the
juvenile justice system, referred to the Aichhorn Center in his New
York Times article of December 5, 2000.
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00610FB3F580C768CDDAB0994D8404482&scp=6&sq=aichhorn%20center&st=cse
The unexamined psychological issues fueling widespread political
disapproval of all group child care are discussed in an essay from
by Dr. Pawel published in The Humanist. [Note: downloading
this item costs $2.95.]
http://library.northernlight.com/SL19970922040126955.html?cb=0&sc=0#doc
Dr. Pawel reviews a description of the Broward County Mental
Health Court, suggesting that it seems to represent the criminal
justice system's recognition that many chronic psychiatric
patients will not be treated by the mental health
system. The
Forensic
Echo .
Child Welfare Watch,
Summer, 2009, in a longer article about the difficulties of
securing long-term psychiatric care for very disturbed children in
the foster care system, includes photos of an alumni reunion, and
a discussion of the Aichhorn RTF's outcome study. See
"A
Revolving
Door
of
Care,"
page
20
of the pdf file.
The background of an RTF resident forms the basis for an extended
discussion of the scarcity of resources for mentally ill teenagers
in the juvenile justice system in the Fall, 2009 issue of Child Welfare Watch. See
"Where
the
Sick
Get
Sicker,"
page
5
of the pdf file.
Another former resident was interviewed in the NY
Times neighborhood section.
In 2011, Child Welfare Watch outlined plans for the
RTF-Brooklyn. click
here . Kendra Hurley followed up a year later when
the facility opened. click
here
[revised 11/10/14]