Therapeutic Options™
Neurorelational Positive Behavior Support and Emergency Behavior Management
Therapeutic Options™ is a comprehensive approach to reducing violence and the use of restraint and seclusion in behavioral health care, health care, habilitation, and education settings. The program provides the tools to keep people safe while maintaining their commitment to positive approaches in supporting individuals whose behavior sometimes poses danger to themselves or others.
The ultimate purpose of Therapeutic Options™ training is to build our capacity to be with people in a meaningful way; to be a source of healing, encouragement, and safety to everyone who comes to us for help, no matter how challenging their behavior or complex their support needs.
Above all, people coming to us for support need us to be wise, and they need us to be kind. The Therapeutic Options™ curriculum helps us develop our ability to be both.
Therapeutic Options™ is:
Research Based The curriculum draws extensively on the research literature from psychology, behavioral neuroscience, psychiatry, behavior analysis, education, traumatology, rehabilitation, kinesiology, and advocacy.
Person Centered Supports are strength-based and respectful of individuals’ needs, interests, preferences, and goals as they move toward increased independence or recovery.
Relationship Driven Therapeutic Options™ stresses the vital importance of the helping relationship as the vehicle through which services are provided, and supports individuals to expand and deepen their social networks.
Prevention Focused The program employs a public health model, emphasizing global primary prevention strategies as well as secondary and tertiary prevention in the form of communication-based de-escalation and emergency management skills.
Trauma Informed The curriculum incorporates insights from research on the widespread incidence and neuro-behavioral consequences of trauma in people receiving mental health and developmental services.
Training Format
The standard Therapeutic Options™ training, which includes all the preventive material as well as the personal protection and physical containment skills, is two full days for a group of 6 or more participants. Training time may be reduced if an agency elects to omit the physical violence containment skills or if the training group is smaller than six people. Please note that the physical skills MAY NOT be taught in the absence of the preventive material. There are some other circumstances in which the training time may be shortened. Contact us for more information.
The conceptual and preventive material is organized into a PowerPoint presentation. Instructors receive a manual, teaching guides to both the preventive (verbal) and physical skills curriculum, and have access to all other training materials at no cost through the instructor section of our website. These materials include the PowerPoint, tests, skill check-off sheets, and handouts for participants that follow the PowerPoint.
Therapeutic Options™ provides staff with an array of effective physical intervention skills that are designed to (1) prevent injury to staff and people receiving services, and (2) preserve the helping alliance. All the physical skills have been extensively field tested and proven to be both safe and effective.
Therapeutic Options™ offers a unique approach to teaching physical skills that promotes learning and facilitates skill retention, focusing on developing a small set of perceptual, postural, and positional habits and gross motor skills that participants quickly incorporate into their behavioral repertoire, rather than presenting a host of techniques that may be difficult to remember and execute.
Instructor Certification (Train-the-Trainer)
We offer a four-day Train-the-Trainer workshop leading to instructor certification. Certified instructors are authorized to provide Therapeutic Options™ training to staff of their sponsoring agency and its affiliates, as long as their certification is current. An affiliate is an agency that provides services to some of the same people or who, in some way, share resources or staff. Instructors may not charge for their training of affiliate agencies. Once expired, instructors may not provide the training until they complete recertification. Please contact us with any questions.
The Train-the-Trainer course includes two days of curriculum demonstration and two days of structured practice teaching, feedback, and coaching from a Master Instructor. Participants learn how to deliver both the Therapeutic Options™ verbal-conceptual curriculum components and the physical skills curriculum, receiving guidance on teaching style and delivery, organization of information, and problem solving during training.
The initial instructor certification is good for one year, at which time the instructor must attend a one-day recertification workshop. Recertification then takes place every two years. Beginning January 1, 2023, first year instructors will have 6 months after their expiration date to recertify at a one-day certification workshop. If they exceed 6 months, they will need to attend a new four-day certification session to continue as a certified instructor. Instructors who have recertified at least once will have 12 months past their expiration date to recertify at a one-day workshop. Beyond 12 months, they will be required to attend a four-day new certification training. If special circumstances arise, we can evaluate each situation individually. Instructors are authorized to provide training to staff of their sponsor agencies, and only their sponsor agencies, as long as their certification is current. Once expired, instructors may not provide the training until they complete recertification. If you have questions about the status of your certification, please reach out to us.
Certified Instructors have access to ongoing consultation from a Therapeutic Options™ Master Instructor via phone and e-mail. The cost for this consultation is included in the program fee.
Please visit our schedule for information about upcoming Certification and Recertification courses.