Annually, juvenile fire setting is responsible for significant financial, property and personal loss. Furthermore, it is a symptom which reflects significant and often enduring mental health concerns. Juvenile fire setting is an individual, family, and community problem that requires treatment and intervention from multiple sources including fire departments and community mental health. The treatment offered to fire setters at Bingham Child Guidance Center is a critical component in the chain of resources required to meet the needs of children who set fires.
Mental health services decrease the severity of current psychiatric symptoms through family and individual treatment. The rate of significant psychiatric symptoms is high within the fire setting population; treatment requires thorough assessment and specific interventions aimed to meet the individual psychiatric needs of each child and their family. Comprehensive treatment in turn reduces the probability of future fire setting behavior. It is our hope that this juvenile fire setters manual will serve as one more resource to aid children and families in reducing the incidence and prevalence of fire setting behavior.
