| DEFINITION |
A residential treatment facility (RTF) is a facility or distinct part of a facility that provides to children and adolescents, a total, twenty-four hour, therapeutically planned group living and learning situation where distinct and individualized
psychotherapeutic interventions can take place. Residential treatment is a specific level of care to be differentiated from acute, intermediate, and long-term hospital care, when the least restrictive environment is maintained to allow for normalization
of the patient's surroundings. The RTF must be both physically and programmatically distinct if it is a part or subunit of a larger treatment program. An RTF is organized and professionally staffed to provide residential treatment of
mental disorders to children and adolescents who have sufficient intellectual potential to respond to active treatment (that is, for whom it can reasonably be assumed that treatment of the mental disorder will result in an improved ability to function
outside the RTF) for whom outpatient treatment, partial hospitalization or protected and structured environment is medically or psychologically necessary
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