Systemic Therapy for At Risk Teens (START)
Chief Investigator: Professor Peter Fonagy
START (Systemic Therapy For At Risk Teens) is a major research study across 9 sites in the UK investigating a form of intervention for young people and their families who are experiencing difficulties at home, at school and sometimes with the law. This way of helping young people and their families is new to the UK. The study is one the largest of its kind, representing a collaboration between University College London, the University of Cambridge and the University of Leeds. The study is funded by the Department of Health and the Department of Education with a follow up extension funded by the NIHR (Health Service & Delivery Research Programme).
We aim to compare Multisystemic Therapy (MST) with other services that are currently offered to young people and their families who are considered to be at ‘high risk’ of requiring out-of-home care such as fostering, social care or custody if associated with antisocial behaviour such as conviction as a young offender. MST was originally developed in the United States about 25 years ago, and although there is evidence to suggest that MST is a very promising treatment, it has not yet been investigated in the UK and so we aim to answer the question of whether it will be as effective here.
MST is an intervention specifically designed for young people (who exhibit antisocial behaviour) and their families, and was originally developed in the United States as an approach for helping adolescents seen to be at elevated risk of becoming young offenders and who were already receiving multi-agency interventions. MST is an intensive family and community based treatment programme that is designed to not only work with the young person and their family, but to also look at the young person within their wider context and social systems, i.e. home, school, community, peer relations. The underlying premise of MST is that criminal conduct and antisocial behaviour is multi-causal, meaning that the environment around the young person is looked at in addition to the young person themselves.
The intervention process typically lasts for between 3 and 5 months and assists families, schools, and communities to help the young person overcome their antisocial behaviour problems. It is delivered by specially trained professionals who work with only a few families at a time, each therapist being the single point of contact for each young person, available 24/7, and thus able to develop a strong relationship with them very quickly. MST has nine guiding treatment principles:
Please contact us if you have a general queries or are interested in finding out more about the START Trial:
Trial Coordinator: START@ucl.ac.uk
START Trial
Research Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology
University College London
1-19 Torrington Place
London
WC1E 7HB
United Kingdom
Research Themes
Forthcoming Events
No articles are available.