IICAPS Quality Assurance/Quality Improvement Group

Intensive In-Home Child & Adolescent Psychiatric Services (IICAPS) is a widely implemented, research-based, and manualized intervention designed to support families across Connecticut and Rhode Island. This program primarily serves children experiencing severe emotional disturbance, offering an alternative to psychiatric hospitalization for young people with complex needs.

The IICAPS Research Group conducts large-scale mixed-method studies, analyzing data collected from the broader IICAPS network and the Yale IICAPS program. The group also collaborates with investigators pursuing research within this field in the US and internationally. By uniting clinicians and researchers from diverse disciplines (including social work, psychiatry, epidemiology, public health, clinical and developmental psychology, biostatistics), we aim to provide a strong empirical foundation for ongoing quality assurance and improvement (QA/QI) within IICAPS. Over the past decade, IICAPS research has also made significant contributions to the empirical literature on intensive home-based treatment, influencing both U.S. and international approaches to care.

The IICAPS Research group is led by Line Brotnow Decker, clinical psychologist and lecturer in the Child Study Center.

• Psychopathological profiles and treatment outcomes for children and parents in IICAPS.
• Mechanisms of change, demographic and therapeutic factors associated with treatment success in IHBT, including trauma and mentalizing
• Effectiveness of mentalization-based supervision and training for early-career clinicians

Decker, L.B., Woolston, J. & Stob, V. Intensive home-based treatment for high-risk psychiatrically complex children, adolescents and families. In Martin, A. &Volkmar, F. R (Eds.). (In press). Lewis's child and adolescent psychiatry: a comprehensive textbook. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Conway, C. A., Decker, L. B., Adnopoz, J., & Woolston, J. (2024). Who are the Parents? Risk and Resiliency Among Parents of Youth Receiving Intensive Home-Based Psychiatric Treatment. Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma, 1-11.

Decker, L. B., Torres, B., Dunnum, S., Woolston, J., & Stob, V. (2023). Therapeutic Work with Parents’ Childhood Experiences in the Context of Intensive Home-Based Treatment for High-Risk Youth: Practical Mentalization-Based and Trauma-Informed Interventions. Contemporary Family Therapy, 1-10.

Stob, V., Slade, A., Brotnow, L., & Woolston, J. (2023). The Family Cycle in Supervision: Enhancing Clinician Mentalizing in Work with Highly Stressed Families. Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy, 1-12.

Conway, C.A., Decker, L.B., Moffett, S.J., Adnopoz, J. & Woolston, J. (2022). Addressing Chronic School Absenteeism Through Intensive Home‐Based Psychiatric Treatment: An Examination of the IICAPS Program. Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal

Decker, L. B., Patel, A. A., Conway, C. A., Kim, S., Adnopoz, J., & Woolston, J.(2021). When parents and clinicians disagree: Consequences for high-risk youth receiving in-home family-based psychiatric treatment. Children and Youth Services Review, 121, 105913.

Stob, V., Slade, A., Adnopoz, J., & Woolston, J. (2020). The family cycle: Breaking the intergenerational transmission of trauma through mentalizing. Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy, 19(3), 255-270.

Stob, V., Slade, A., Brotnow, L., Adnopoz, J. & Woolston, J. (2019). The Family Cycle: An Activity to Enhance Parents’ Mentalization in Children’s Mental Health Treatment. Journal of Infant, Child & Adolescent Psychotherapy, 18(2), 103-119.

Moffett, S., Brotnow, L., Patel, A., Adnopoz, J., & Woolston, J. (2017). Intensive home-based programs for youth with serious emotional disturbances: A comprehensive review of experimental findings. Children and Youth Services Review.

Barbot, B., Bick, J., Bentley, M. J., Balestracci, K. M., Woolston, J., Adnopoz, J. A., & Grigorenko, E. L. (2016). Changes in mental health outcomes with the intensive in‐home child and adolescent psychiatric service: A multi‐informant, latent consensus approach. International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research, 25(1), 33-43.

Woolston, J. L., Adnopoz, J., Berkowitz, S., & Berkowitz, S. J. (2007). IICAPS: A home-based psychiatric treatment for children and adolescents. Yale university press.