Touchstone has a long history of serving children and families in Arizona since 1968. Touchstone began as Arizona Boy’s Community, evolved into Touchstone Community, later Touchstone Behavioral Health and now Touchstone Health Services, as it expands its array of integrated health services.
Touchstone started as a Residential Treatment Center (RTC), then added Partial Day Programs and in 1988 transformed services to be all home, office and community-based behavioral health services (counseling, therapy, family therapy, family support, wrap-around services, case management, psychiatry and more).
To better serve its clients from the juvenile justice, child-welfare-foster, education and behavioral health communities, Touchstone became accredited through the Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) in 1987 and adopted Evidence-Based Programs (EBPs) in 1999. These programs were first created in University research controlled environments, and they proved to be very effective with families and children like those in Touchstone’s service.
Touchstone replicated various EBP programs and is now providing those programs as well as other promising programs throughout Arizona. Those include:
Community behavioral health agencies and providers serving children across Arizona follow the Arizona Practice Model which states, “In collaboration with the child and family and others, Arizona will provide accessible behavioral health services designed to aid children to achieve success in school, live with their families, avoid delinquency, and become stable and productive adults. Services will be tailored to the child and family and provided in the most appropriate setting, in a timely fashion and in accordance with best practices, while respecting the child’s and family’s cultural heritage.” At the core of the Arizona Practice Model are the 12 Arizona Principles.
12 Arizona Principles:
The 12 Arizona Principles serve as the foundation for providing behavioral health services and are universally applied when working with children and their families through the use of Child and Family Team (CFT) practice.
Child and Family Team (CFT)
The Child and Family Team (CFT) is a defined group of people that includes, at a minimum, the child and his/her family, a behavioral health representative, and any individuals important in the child’s life and who are identified and invited to participate by the child and family. This may include, for example, physical health provider, teachers, extended family members, friends, family support partners, healthcare providers, coaches, community resource providers, and representatives from churches, synagogues or mosques, agents from other service systems such as the Arizona Department of Child Safety (ADCS) or the Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD) etc. The size, scope and intensity of involvement of the team members are determined by the objectives established for the child, the needs of the family in providing for the child, and what individuals are needed to develop an effective service plan and can therefore expand and contract as necessary to be successful on behalf of the child.
Touchstone’s programs/services are built around the 12 Arizona Principles and the CFT process is fully integrated into the services we provide.