As Phoenix Homes of Tennessee developed job titles and job descriptions for the staff of Phoenix Homes of Tennessee, care was taken so that job titles should directly relate to the nature of that persons job thus the “Case Manager” in most peoples mind became the “FTC” which stands for “Family Treatment Coordinator”. It is their role to coordinate any and all services that one of our youth may need. The “administrators” or “Managers” became DTA’s which stands for “Divisional Treatment Administrator”. Their primary responsibility is to monitor and support quality treatment to our youth as well as plan services and support the office. Our “therapists” became DTS’s which stands for Divisional Therapy Specialists.

It was decided that the term “foster parent” was not fully appropriate for all the things Phoenix families do for children! Phoenix staff see treatment foster parents as the primary change agents for youth. We as an agency, as well as our staff, understand that if a youth changes it is mostly because of the foster parent, together with the staffs support. Primary Treatment Facilitator (PTF)—is what Phoenix Homes sees the role of our foster parents to be. With the Phoenix staffs support you are the primary treatment facilitator, you “make it happen” for the youth.

So why is this so important? So what does a title mean anyway? Well in this agency we wanted to make sure each of the players in our “treatment team” knew what was expected of them, and specifically what role in the “treatment team” they should play. What does this mean to you as a PTF?

Let’s look at this in detail. Some of the synonyms for “Primary” in the dictionary are; “main, chief, crucial, major or prime”. Couple that with “treatment” and you clearly have the idea that you are the “main treatment” or major treatment” part in our treatment program. The synonyms for “facilitator” include “launch pad, means, method, mechanism, catalyst”. So you now become the “mechanism for our major treatment” or the “catalyst for our youths treatment program”. Clearly this is a very important position. It is also important to keep in mind that unlike most other foster care programs you are expected to solve most of the day-to-day issues with your youth and document the problems and the resolutions in your daily and monthly notes. You are expected to be there when the youth needs transportation to appointments like medical, Mental Health and court hearings. You are to be present for treatment team meetings and court hearings. It is imperative that you do your documentation clearly, effectively and timely in Kaleidacare as well as home based documents like Medication logs and allowance logs.

What it means to us as an agency is that we will continue to be committed to providing top quality pre-service training and ongoing training opportunities to each of our PTF’s. We will also continue to work on methods of providing support to you through wrap around services and innovative treatment services.

Primary Treatment Facilitator, an awesome responsibility but one that is so important to the youth we serve.