About the Pediatric Burn Care Community

Juvenile Firesetter Assessment and Intervention/Treatment Programs based out of hospital Burn Care Centers are an important extension of community resources available to parents who find themselves faced with understanding and resolving this very dangerous behavior. In some Centers this resource is limited to burn injured patients treated at that facility. Other Centers accept outside referrals as well with a focus on collaborative, coordinated services. Educational interventions can be provided by a cross section of trained Burn Team Staff. A JFS Program providing comprehensive assessment and treatment requires the services of Mental Health Professionals.

Issues Facing the Pediatric Burn Care Community

• Making the evaluation and treatment culturally sensitive and appropriate.
• Tracking recidivism with families in crisis who often make frequent moves.
• Coordinating recidivism rates with other disciplines.
• Accessing referrals from outside sources and maintaining a consistent referral base.
• Maintaining a safe hospital environment given the firesetting behavior.
• Funding issues that will support being able to serve all JFS patients needing our services.
• Family involvement in treatment is critical but often challenging.
• We are a separate system from the courts and fire departments and do not have the leverage to require families to participate without the connection to those systems.
• It is both an advantage and a challenge that hospitals are not connected to any specific fire, legal, school district, or county. Often we may be interfacing with multiple counties within a metro area.

ADVANTAGES of hospital based programs

• Connection to other services within the hospital (e.g., medical, higher acuity mental health).
• Evaluation and support to other services in the community.
• Wealth of mental health and medical training and experience.

Goals for the Pediatric Burn Care Community

• Develop a better understanding of the behavior.
• Consider and support the family system.
• Teach and train life skills that are specific to firesetting but also that can be applied to coping with life challenges more generally.
• Research
• Educate other systems about the complexity of this behavior.
• Contribute to the updating of JFS literature and understanding of firesetting.
• Facilitate training of mental health and health professionals on the evaluation and treatment of JFS.