Dr Friedman, a founder of the Warwick House, is a respected leader in the child welfare and mental health community. A distinguished academician in the field of social welfare, he has conducted noteworthy research in the areas of foster care, adoption and residential treatment. This includes his contribution to the in-depth look at the foster care system by Ira Schwartz entitled Kids Raised by the Government.

Based on his research and practical experience, Dr. Friedman pioneered the Intensive Treatment model utilized at the Warwick House. The Warwick model is dedicated to the principle that children are better raised and served in family settings, creating the goal of achieving a shorter length of residential treatment stay, by forging a “Family Partnership” to achieve systemic family treatment. This requires the family to be involved in every aspect of their child’s treatment. Our program encourages families to get involved in the activities at the Warwick House, to participate at team meetings during the course of treatment and designed therapeutic stays overnight at the House. However, treatment is also provided in the child’s home(s), as well as in the therapeutic environment of our facility. The home component is unique to the Warwick House and has demonstrated its value as evidenced by successful outcomes of children stabilized in family settings, biological, foster or adoptive and a reduced length of stay achieved by the program.

Treatment plans are formulated to include three primary Child Welfare goals of safety, permanency and well being of the child and their family, exhibited by mental health objectives in order to reach these goals. Treatment effectiveness relies on collaboration focused on re-connecting families to other community-based services, so discharge planning begins at admission. Treatment fidelity is maintained by ongoing supervision to all clinical staff, e.g., primary therapists and milieu counselors on a weekly basis, to assure effective treatment plan implementation. The program focuses on data collection as part of its effort to establish an evidence based practice, as well as serving as its goal of serving as its own learning center, as this fosters the development of new strategies and interventions for distressed families.