Multiple opportunities for creating sanctuary

Abstract

This article describes the experience of five change agents from a diverse group of settings: two residential treatment programs for children and adolescents, a group home for disturbed adolescents, a residential substance abuse program for urban women, and an acute care psychiatric inpatient unit. What all of these innovators share is a willingness to engage in the challenging and complex process of changing their systems to better address the needs of the traumatized children, adolescents, and adults who populate their various programs. Using the Sanctuary Model as originally applied to a specialty inpatient psychiatric program for adult survivors of childhood abuse as their guide, the leaders of each of these organizations discuss the process of change that they are directing.