North Carolina Launches Two-Year Pilot Of Crisis De-Escalation As Restraint Alternative For Child Psychiatric Residential Care

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) launched a two-year pilot program in which 22 youth Psychiatric Residential Treatment Facilities (PRTFs) operated by seven provider organizations will begin using an innovative system called Ukeru® to de-escalate crises and provide alternatives to the use of restraints. The pilot is part of an NCDHHS effort to improve the quality of residential interventions for children with complex needs. The method provides training on intervention strategies to eliminate the high-risk use of restraint and seclusion as behavioral management tools.

For the pilot, NCDHHS contracted with Ukeru Systems, a . . .