Interventions

An intervention is not a confrontation

The image most families carry of an intervention — the ambush, the script, the surprise — is the version built for television. A real intervention is a carefully prepared conversation, led by a trained professional, designed to make it easier for someone to say yes to help than to say no. It's a negotiation, not a confrontation.

Who runs our interventions

Our interventions are led by Certified Intervention Professionals (CIP), several of whom are also members of the Association of Intervention Professionals (AIS). Andrew and Dr. Almaguer are both CIPs; Dr. Almaguer is the only psychiatrist and licensed CIP in AIS. That matters — because when someone shows up actively psychotic, or newly detoxing, or on a medication that complicates the picture, a psychiatrist is already in the room.

We also bring negotiation training most interventionists don't — Harvard Law's Program on Negotiation and Black Swan Group (Chris Voss / FBI) training. Which means the person leading the conversation has studied how people actually make the hardest decisions of their lives, not just how to read a script.

What the process looks like

• Pre-intervention assessment — we spend real time with the family before anyone books a flight. What's worked, what's failed, what the person is actually afraid of.
• Family coaching — the people around the person have their own work to do before the conversation. We prepare them.
• Placement coordination — we line up the receiving program or care plan in advance, so the moment someone says yes, the next step is already moving.
• The intervention itself — in person where it makes sense, remote where it doesn't, always structured around the individual.
• Aftercare and case management — an intervention that ends at the doorstep of a treatment center is an intervention that usually fails. We stay with the family through the handoff and beyond.

Our engagement rate

Across interventions and broader engagement work, we're at an 89% engagement rate — including partial and outpatient placements. That number is reported conservatively: we count people who accepted partial care, outpatient care, and step-down alternatives, not only those who walked into a residential program that day. We think that's the honest way to count it.