Therapeutic Behavioral Services

Therapeutic Behavioral Services is designed to help children, youth, parents and caregivers manage challenging behaviors utilizing short-term interventions to achieve measurable goals based on the needs of the child or teen and the  family. TBS helps the child learn new adaptive behaviors and skills to replace dysfunctional or dangerous ones, and is delivered in the child’s everyday living environment. Used in conjunction with other mental health services that the youth is receiving from a counseling/clinical treatment team, TBS can make the difference in decreasing behavior or symptoms that are jeopardizing a child’s current living situation. It can also help a child make a successful transition to a lower level of care.  The short-term and behavior focused treatment, along with requirements for tracking progress, allows for continuous monitoring of goals and interventions for efficacy in service. We often see great progress in our TBS clients over a very short period of time.

Request Therapeutic Behavioral Services (TBS) For A Child

Children can be referred for therapeutic behavioral services (TBS ) by their therapist. Parents, caregivers, foster parents, CASAs, social workers, probation officers, and mental health providers can ask for TBS services. Changing Turn Community Healthcare Services provides TBS in the following counties in Maryland: Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Harford County, and Cecil County.

Referring Medical Professionals & Agencies: Please click below to download our TBS referral form, fax it to our intake fax# 443-708-1655, and a member of our team will contact you within 24 – 48 hours of receipt. 

  – Download TBS Refferral Form

Please complete the form below and a member of our TBS intake team will contact you within 24 – 48 hours:

One of our Changing Turn TBS specialists, in consultation with a clinical supervisor and the caregiver of the child, will develop and implement behavior intervention plans to help a child/youth live effectively in his or her home setting.  Our TBS team will deliver services in the child’s home, at school, or in the community. Our TBS specialists spend most of their time implementing behavioral interventions with the child/youth and working with parents and caregivers to effectively use behavioral modification strategies identified in the intervention plan.  Examples of some of these strategies are identifying coping skills, creating safety plans, behavioral tracking, positive reinforcement, parent coaching, and much more.  As a mental health solution, therapeutic behavioral services has an excellent track record of  being a treatment that helps children stay in their home or transition back to homes in the community; thus, reducing the number of young people from mental health hospitalizations.

To be eligible for therapeutic behavioral services in the state of Maryland:

• Recipient shall be younger than 21 years old and enrolled in the Maryland Medical Assistance Program (Medicaid)
• Recipient shall be assessed as having behaviors or symptoms related to a mental health diagnosis that places the individual’s current living arrangement at risk and creates a risk for a more restrictive placement, or prevents transition to a less restrictive placement
• Recipient’s behaviors or symptoms shall be safely and effectively treated in the community; and
• Recipient’s parent, guardian, or individual who customarily provides care shall be present during the provision of all therapeutic behavioral services to participate in the behavioral plan, unless there are clinical goals specifically addressed in the behavior plan that need to be achieved requiring that the parent, guardian, or individual who customarily provides care not be present.