FAQ for Parents

Yellowbrick recognizes three different forms of partnerships within the relationships established during treatment. Yellowbrick staff and Parents each have a relationship to the emerging adult and their treatment. Secondly, there is a partnership among Yellowbrick staff and the parents. The majority of Parents also value the powerful partnership established through PAP Weekends with other Parents. PAP Weekends gives you an opportunity to dialogue with Yellowbrick staff and with other parents towards a deeper understanding of your emerging adult and their challenges, as well as your own experience as you engage in the developmental process parenting an emerging adult with psychiatric difficulties.

An extensive Outcome Report (chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://yellowbrickprogram.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Yellowbrick-Outcome-Report-2023.pdf) details the research Yellowbrick has conducted since 2006, demonstrating the power of Yellowbrick’s developmental neurobiological model.

A “back of the napkin” summary would be:

• About a third of emerging adults who engage in treatment at Yellowbrick for a minimum of four months experience a transformative change wherein their internal emotional architecture and life/behaviors become integrated and coherent. They experience themselves as fundamentally different.
• About half experience symptomatic relief, increased hope and confidence, and live with enhanced self-directed authority. They are better risk managers, more resilient and better able to make use of outpatient therapy to navigate their continued vulnerabilities in the face of life’s challenges.
• The remaining minority are unable to engage in treatment at this time.

• Length of stay varies significantly, averaging 6 months to a year.
• Many of the emerging adults coming to Yellowbrick have had challenges and neurodiversity since early development which then get compounded with stressful and/or traumatic events activating neurobiological medical and psychiatric vulnerabilities.
• Neuroscience research informs that deeply entrenched network patterns, the mammalian default brain network, requires intense immersion and engagement in a rhythm of disruption and repair for a minimum of four months for transformative change to be initiated. It can then require several more months of real-time engagement in life’s choices and experiences to consolidate the new networking.

While each emerging adult has their unique neurobiological & developmental history, emotional fingerprints & personality, in addition to often multiple official psychiatric diagnosis, it is essential within Yellowbrick’s developmental neurobiological model that they are all facing and attempting to navigate more effectively the universal challenges in transitioning from adolescence to mature adulthood. These challenges are:

1. establishing an integrated and coherent identity
2. distress tolerance, risk management, self-regulation and resilience
3. interpersonal effectiveness across a range of intimacy
4. executive function and life skills competence
5. renegotiation with family of origin towards connected autonomy

Yellowbrick’s treatment targets each of these with the intention of putting wind to the back of normative maturation while also restoring developmental compensatory pathways that have become arrested, derailed or distorted. Progress in these areas are generally non-linear and often experientially embedded primarily within relationships with the Yellowbrick Community and only lastly with parents such that it may be difficult for parents to objectively or experientially witness meaningful advances in treatment. The following can be helpful behavioral indicators of a movement towards transition:

1. Distress tolerance skills and willingness to seek support and collaborate with others in the face of self-injurious and/or suicidal impulses.
2. Acknowledgement of vulnerabilities and willingness to manage associate risks.
3. Demonstrated capacity to manage a non-destructive relationship to substances, alcohol and addictive behaviors.
4. Capacity to be safely and productively alone.
5. Capacity to recognize feelings and needs and to bring those adaptively into relationships.
6. Capacity to hold hurts, disappointments, anger, and safely and adaptively experience loss.
7. Building the beginnings of a supportive Community.
8. Initiating some form of productive and meaningful daily activity.
9. Maintenance and respect for biological needs and rhythms as well as self-directed schedule and self-care.
10. Willingness and capacity to communicate and collaborate with Parents about boundaries, power, mutual needs and emotions in the relationships.

• All communication needs from Parents go through the Family Liaison who is available, as determined by the parent , on a 24/7 basis. Communication can be by text, email, phone in-person or video visits. Parents are encouraged to identify what their needs are and negotiate this with the Family Liaison as the agreement may be structured or ad lib and may change at different points in the treatment.
• Parents may feel the need to call CCS at The Residence, particularly after distressing after-hours communication with their emerging adult. Please be aware that, due to Federal Law (HIPAA) and the Illinois Menta Health Code, CCS cannot acknowledge the presence of your emerging adult. You can, however, share you information which CCS can relay to the MD on Call and other staff as needed.

Additionally, Parents have regular opportunities within the Family Services Model to communicate their concerns. These include:

1. The Comprehensive Assessment includes eliciting history within the pre-admission process and 2 interviews.
   Collaboration Conference, usually about 2 hours, for discussion of the assessment findings and recommendations.
2. Family Rounds which are regular strategic planning meetings regarding the course of treatment. The optimal forum for discussing changes in the treatment plan is Family Rounds.
3. Family therapy sessions occur when the emerging adult and parents feel trusting enough of Yellowbrick, know the issues in need of discussion and are willing to address them.
4. Family Forum; an every other week Parent Support Group facilitated by the Director of Family Services & Systems.
   Parents as Partners Weekends.

Within the initial twelve (12) weeks, all time away from treatment shall be billed at the standard rate as if attended.

After the initial 12 weeks, unsupported time away from treatment will be billed at the standard rate as if attended.

Time away for psychiatric hospitalization is an exception to this policy; there will be charges for consultation with the hospital.

After the initial twelve (12) weeks of programming three (3) days of supported PHP or IOP time away will be available. Additional time away will accrue at a rate of an additional one day per month at a rate based on the level of care following payment of care rendered to date.

Charges for The Residence continue through supported time away.

If Parents &/or the Emerging Adult chooses to take additional time away, a leave of absence may be requested in writing and billing will pause. If a leave of absence is requested, Yellowbrick cannot guarantee availability of return to The Residence, specific staff assignments for care, or readmission at the point Emerging Adult wishes to return to Yellowbrick. Yellowbrick has the right to discharge the Emerging Adult rather than grant a leave of absence.

Yellowbrick honors the following six national Holidays:

• New Years Day
• Memorial Day
• July 4th
• Labor Day
• Thanksgiving
• Xmas

The Minding the BrainPHP/IOP is closed on these Holidays. Alternatively, all peers regardless of where they are living and level of care, are welcome to participate in activities at The Residence which are co-planned by peers with staff. In addition to outings in Chicagoland, games, and other recreational/athletic options, traditionally there is always a BBQ on Holidays and a catered dinner for Thanksgiving and Xmas. Residents are billed the per-diem for the Holiday.

Please see the leadership page.

Business Services Staff are available to facilitate administrative and financial matters as well as to ensure welcoming, elite customer service.

Core Competence Staff (CCS) are shift workers at The Residence. Their role is to facilitate safe and adaptive living patterns, support distress tolerance, executive function & life skills development and building community.

Advocates are Professional Staff who are responsible for multiple times a week individual psychotherapy with assigned patients. They also participate in Family Therapy and Family Rounds. Their role is to oversee and harvest all that is occurring in the patient’s life at Yellowbrick and ensure it is integrated into the treatment. In order to protect the treatment, the Advocate’s conversations with emerging adults are confidential from Parents but available to all staff members and vice-versa.

Behavior within the Yellowbrick Community is considered public and therefore staff are free to discuss the potential meanings and implications of behavior as communication from the emerging adult.

Additional Professional Staff include an Occupational Therapist(OTR) , OT Assistant(COTA) , Registered Dietician (RD), Art Therapist, Integrative Services Specialist (yoga, movement, drama).

Medical Staff include the Chief Medical Officer, Medical Director, Advanced Nurse Practitioner, Synchrony Coordinator and Neuroscience and Research Associates. Neurobiological aspects of all cases are regularly and repeatedly reviewed by all Medical Staff. The Medical Director is responsible for oversight of all care within Yellowbrick and Synchrony Brain Health.

• Financial emails come from Cynthia Navas, Director of Business Services.
• Monthly reports and occasional other communications come from Cierra Hoecker, Business Services Associate.
• Family Forum announcements and Family Liaison communications come from Bryn Jessup, Director of Family Services & Systems.
• The Family Liaison may will be communicating with you by text, email, etc..
• Certain medicolegal matters may be communicated by the Medical Director of Chief Medical Officer.

Due to legal requirements to protect Private Health Information, Yellowbrick must use an encrypted delivery system which requires Parents to establish an ID and password to register. The system is named Zizencrypt. While the system is cumbersome, it is one of the few available for sending end to end encrypted emails and documents. Yellowbrick is working on migrating to the use of the Portal within the Electronic Medical Record but none currently exists which separates Patient from Family. Yellowbrick’s contract with the current vendor ends this summer and we are reviewing alternative options.

• The Family Liaison is truly available when you feel it necessary.
• Monthly reports from the emerging adult’s rounds are sent to Parents following Family Rounds. Feel free to ask for more current timely updates as you feel the need.
• It is very important (not only for your child’s progress but for PHP insurance reimbursement) that your emerging adult attends a minimum of 4 hours of treatment a day. IOP requires 3 hours a day.
• This may be important not only for reimbursement but also for the number of days pre-authorized by the insurance company.
• You may need to check in with your Family Liaison from time to time to find out attendance information and it is also summarized on the monthly Treatment Tracker.
• The Treatment Plan and Treatment Tracker attempt to inform Parents about the process and progress in treatment in both narrative and explicit behavioral terms.
• Please inform the Business Office if you are having difficulties in the insurance recovery process, including if you are contracting with SJ health resources.

• CCS: Core Competence Staff at The Residence
• CTC: Consultation & Treatment Center
• PHP: Partial Hospitalization Program (4+hours a day minimum 4x/wee)
• IOP: 3+ hours a day minimum 3x/week
• YBCM: Yellowbrick Community Meeting
• TRP: Trauma Recovery IOP
• RAP: Rewards Alternative Pathways (Addictions IOP)
• Makor: Creative Community space at CTC
• Makom: Creative Community space at The Residence
• Tikkun: Healing & Repair space at The Residence
• dTMS: deep Trancranial Magnetic Stimulation
• YB: Yellowbrick
• SBH: Synchrony Brain Health