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What are the options when there are concerns about transportinga resistant teento a program that could help them? Perhaps you’ve found atreatment programto provide the help your troubled teen desperately needs, but your teen refuses to go and threatens to run away if you try to force them. Or perhaps you have fears your teen may try to physically harm themselves or someone else if you transport them to the program, especially if it’s far away. In these situations hiring teen transport or escort service provides a possible solution.
What Is a Teen Transport Service?
What Is a Group Home?
What Happens When a Teen Is Transported?
Escort services vary in their specific approaches and procedures, but most share a similar overall strategy that takes place during five primary steps:
Does the Transport Team Come in the Middle of the Night?
Are Physical Restraints Used to Transport Teens?
These services have somewhat of a reputation for handling teens aggressively, but this appears to be the exception rather than the rule. Initially, these companies were set up to handle only potentially combative or difficult teens, but now these services have expanded to be more supportive of both teens and parents. This shift in philosophy has also changed how most companies facilitate the transition.
Interventionists or agents are trained to treat teens with respect, to verbally de-escalate aggressive and resistant behavior and to keep your teen safe through verbal means, resorting to physical restraint only when absolutely necessary. Most agents do carry plastic restraints or handcuffs to use if needed. No legitimate company uses pepper spray or other aggressive methods for teens.
When Is Using a Teen Transportation Service Appropriate?
There are no firm guidelines for when to use or not use this service, but in most cases, this type of intervention is best suited for teens who are mean, aggressive, defiant, manipulative, angry or hostile. Other candidates for being escorted are teens who are abusing substances, or have a history of illegal behavior or running away. For teens who aredepressed,cuttingor have an eating or mood disorder, parents are advised to be careful in making this choice and to only consider using a service that is focused on transporting teens in a positive manner, as it could do more harm than good in these cases.
Hiring a therapeutic teen transport service is often a last resort but it doesn’t need to be a negative experience and many times may be the only way to get a troubled teen the help they desperately need. This option is most often used for potentially volatile teens, but should also be considered for teens in need of extra support or when there is uncertainty about how a teen may react.
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