Ensuring Success

The purpose of this page is to provide an introduction to the organization and staff roles involved in helping you implement the MST model in your community.

Table of Contents

The MST Support Network

Welcome to the world of MST.  With the overall mission to treat serious juvenile offenders and their families, the MST community aims to keep families intact by helping them learn the skills needed to effectively manage the youth and their social ecology.  This is no small task, and in addition to family effort, coordination across a variety of people and organizations is required to achieve positive youth outcomes.

In Figure 1 below, and the sections that follow, the primary roles and entities involved with MST and its implementation are described.  You may want to reference the diagram below as you learn about the various roles and relationships.  We’ll begin on the far-right, with the youth and family who receive MST, and move left-to-right describing key roles and functions in the delivery of quality MST.  Each section will guide you to web-based resources where you can learn more in depth. 

To download a one-page guide including this information, click here. 

MST Roles and Relationships Overview

 

Youth and Families 

MST treats youth, ages 12-17, with serious anti-social behavior (e.g., criminal activity, substance use) and their families.  Families are the central focus of MST and caregivers are considered full collaborators in treatment.  In MST, we operate with a steadfast strengths-based perspective of families, always assuming that they are doing the best they can with what they have, within their own unique circumstances.

Download the report, "What Makes MST Such an Effective Intervention?"

Central to the MST treatment approach is the view that the MST “client” includes not only the youth but also the multiple systems within which the youth is embedded: immediate and extended family, peers, school, neighborhood, providers and other key participants.  The scope of MST interventions includes targeting transactions within and between any combination of these systems, with a constant focus on improving youth and family functioning.  In MST, we are tireless in our efforts, doing “whatever it takes” to assist families in achieving their desired outcomes. 

MST Programs and Provider Organizations

The provider organization is the context within which the treatment model meets the youth and families who will benefit from MST.  MST provider organizations come in a variety of forms including government agencies and private non-government agencies operating either in a for-profit or not-for-profit configuration.  Most agencies that successfully adopt MST have experience delivering an array of services in their respective communities and have established working relationships with local funding and referral sources.  More and more agencies are implementing multiple evidence-based practices.  Within an MST provider organization, there are several MST-related roles, each with a commensurate level of accountability for program-level and treatment outcomes.  

Visit http://www.mstservices.com/our-community for a list of licensed MST providers worldwide.

Key Roles Within a Provider Organization

therapistThe MST Therapist is master’s-prepared (or, if funding sources and local regulations allow it, a highly experienced bachelor’s level) professional, responsible for implementing MST with fidelity, demonstrating adherence to MST Treatment Principles (as measured by TAM-R scores), and maintaining consistent efforts to engage and collaborate with families and other key participants in achieving treatment goals. Research findings have demonstrated that higher therapist adherence to MST Treatment Principles predicts the types of outcomes that families and communities desire:  decreased criminal behavior and out-of-home placements, as well as improved family functioning.  Within the MST team, each therapist works intensively with an average of 5 families at a time and is highly accountable for treatment outcomes.

supervisorThe MST Supervisor has responsibility for the clinical and administrative oversight of MST Therapists and cases. MST Supervisors play a key role in the successful implementation of an MST program.  Indeed, research has demonstrated that the MST Supervisor is critical to the adherence of therapists and the outcomes of youth.  The on-site MST Supervisor is a seasoned master’s-level (or doctoral-level) mental health professional.  The primary focus of the MST Supervisor is to facilitate therapists’ acquisition and implementation of the conceptual and behavioral skills required to achieve adherence to the MST treatment model.

program manager-1The MST Program Manager (PM) works closely with the MST Supervisor to support effective implementation of the Multisystemic Therapy model. The MST Program Manager collaborates with the MST Supervisor to ensure administrative support for the program, understanding the requirements for the effective delivery of MST and making sure that necessary program practices are in place, including overcoming barriers to those practices as needed.  In some programs, an MST Supervisor may fill the role of program manager.

communityCommunity stakeholders are essential to the sustainability of both youth outcomes and program success. One strategy occasionally utilized by successful MST programs is to use a community “advisory board” to build strong collaborative relationships with those responsible for referring youth needing the service and providing initial and ongoing funding as well as with those who are key decision-makers in the youth’s lives. For more information about this concept, see the section titled ‘Developing a Community Advisory Board’.  Community stakeholders, who are MST champions, ranging from teachers and front-line caseworkers to those in local or even national governance, depending on the locale.  In the municipal context, these stakeholders support the MST provider by assuring that services are not duplicated, gaps in service needs are filled, and all players are working in a complementary way.  

MST Network Partnerships

As the MST community has grown, some MST provider organizations or funders have sought to expand their MST capacity, in part by cultivating internally the expertise needed to train therapists and supervisors in MST and to pursue the development of MST programs in other locales in their areas under the MST Network Partner model.  Funding or provider organizations with strong track records in developing and implementing MST have established Network Partnerships that provide ongoing training, program development, and continuous quality improvement support for local MST programs, offering an additional level of familiarity with local customs, languages, culture and the political and service ecology.  With each Network Partnership, MST Services maintains an on-going working relationship that focuses on licensure, staff development, quality improvement, and quality assurance.  The Network Partner community plays a continuing role in furthering the research, development, and dissemination of MST across the world.  

Key Roles Within a Network Partnership

handshakeThe Program Developer (PD) assists organizations interested in starting or expanding MST programs. The Program Developer has accountability for ensuring that program start-up is sound, which begins with assessing the feasibility of prospective teams, and follows a well-tested and thorough protocol (the MST Program Development Method™).  Working through the steps in this method, the Program Developer supports the provider in creating a clear program description, policies, and procedures, and also ensures that there is strong community support for the program.  Part of the Program Developer’s function is to assure that MST is a good fit for the community served and for the provider agency.  The Program Developer’s role with the provider organization typically ends as the team becomes operational.

brain_books-1The MST Expert ensures program adherence to the MST model in order to maximize treatment outcomes for families. To effectively enhance a program’s adherence to MST, an MST Expert must demonstrate expert-level competence in MST.  The effectual MST Expert has a deep knowledge base in the theoretical and empirical underpinnings of MST, child and adolescent treatment research, and mental health services research as well as clinical expertise in conducting behavioral, systemic, and ecological interventions with multi-problem youth and families in community-based settings.  The MST Expert’s job functions that are most observable to MST programs include working jointly with the program developer to support a new program’s healthy start up and ongoing implementation of MST (e.g., helping with staff recruitment, weekly phone consultation with the MST team, on-going supervisor development, delivery of quarterly booster trainings) and overall support and guidance to the MST program in all areas related to ongoing program quality improvement. 

partnerThe Network Partner Director (NPD) works as a leader in Network Partnerships to foster the development and adherent implementation of MST in the areas he or she serves, and to have accountability for program outcomes. The NPD collaborates closely with internal and external stakeholders and often takes the lead on MST champion development in the area served. Additionally, the NPD typically oversees or manages program development and human resources within the Network Partnership. The NPD collaborates closely with the MST Expert, Program Developer and Manager of Network Partnerships to achieve all of these objectives.  

 

MST Services (MSTS)

In 1996, MST Services was licensed by the Medical University of South Carolina to disseminate MST throughout the world in a way that preserves the integrity of the treatment model, thereby ensuring the best possible outcomes for the youth and families treated.  MST Services maintains licensing agreements with all MST provider organizations and Network Partnerships, and through its training and quality assurance procedures, provides leadership and support for all of the roles and functions listed above.  MST Services also maintains strong relationships with national and international entities whose common objective is to bring more evidence-based practices to communities.  MST provider organizations may interface with MST Services via one of its two divisions described below:

  • Team Support Services (TSS) Division: The objective of this section of MST Services is to provide direct program development and MST expert support to domestic and international MST teams and provider organizations.  MST Services employs many experts and program developers, whose roles and functions are described above.  Additionally, the TSS Division coordinates many of the MST trainings that are held worldwide.
  • Network Partner Support Division: This division of MST Services includes the Manager of Network Partnerships (MNP) role who acts as the primary liaison between MST Network Partnership organizations and MST Services.  The MNP orients, trains and provides ongoing coaching to MST experts, and partners with Network Partner Directors and Program Developers in their efforts to maintain model fidelity and positive outcomes.  The Network Partner Support Division provides leadership to the global MST community in continuous quality improvement endeavors via projects, task groups, conferences and workshops each year. 

As a means of furthering its mission to help communities implement MST and improve the lives of youth with anti-social behavior, MST Services maintains strong working alliances with the following entities to capture, track and assess key data about youth outcomes and MST implementation, and to recommend practice improvements to the MST community. 

For more information about MST Services visit http://www.mstservices.com/about-us

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The MST Institute (MSTI)

Established in 1996 alongside MST Services, MSTI provides data collection and reporting for the MST community.  By using state-of-the-art internet-based technology, MSTI helps with both monitoring the integrity of the worldwide implementation of MST, and providing valuable quality assurance feedback, used in the process of continuous quality improvement, to provider agencies and other MST staff.  Provider agency personnel are trained how to enter the data and generate reports used for staff development planning, program evaluation and improvement plans.  Reports can be generated to provide local community stakeholders up-to-date information about youth outcomes and the overall health of the program.

For more information about the MST Institute see http://www.mstinstitute.org

 

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The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC)

Researchers at MUSC have long provided the core research for the MST treatment model, and have also extended support to MST Services to ensure that real-world practices continue to be consistent with the original clinical trials and intentions of MST.  Research is also accomplished in other places around the world.  One of the strengths of MST is that researchers who were not involved in the original model development have been able to replicate the outcomes of the model and contribute to our ongoing learning.

For more information about the MST-related work at MUSC, visit http://academicdepartments.musc.edu/psychiatry/divisions-and-programs/DGCH/ 

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