Group homes · Youth residential
Therapeutic group home software, built around the shift
Shift notes, behavior logs, treatment plans, the 24/7 schedule, and what families are allowed to see, on one record for the small team running the house.
What you're managing
- 24/7 staffing, shift handoffs, and on-call coverage
- Daily observations, incidents, and behavior documentation
- Guardians and case managers who expect updates
How Dacnus helps
- Shift notes with per-resident observations, signed each shift
- Staff scheduling, shift swaps, and time & attendance in the same system
- A guardian portal you permission item by item, MFA required
What a group home asks of its software
A therapeutic group home is a household that never closes. Most of the record is written by direct care staff in the middle of a shift, not by clinicians at a desk, and the people reading it later include the next shift, the therapist, a licensing surveyor, and a guardian who wants to know how the week went.
General-purpose EHRs are built for appointments. A group home needs software built for the day: who is on, what happened with each resident, what the next shift needs to know, and proof that all of it was done.
Documentation staff finish before they leave
One shift note covers the house, with observations for each resident: mood, meals, sleep, and medications administered. Staff sign it each shift.
Behavior written down the way a clinician needs it
Behavior logs record antecedent, behavior, and consequence, with severity, duration, witnesses, and who was notified, so a pattern is visible rather than buried in free text.
A schedule that covers nights and weekends
Build the rota from shift templates, publish open shifts to eligible staff, and route swaps through approval, with time and attendance recorded against the same shifts.
Families kept close without opening the chart
Guardians see only the categories you switch on for their child, behind multi-factor authentication, and their access expires after 90 days unless someone renews it.
Ready for a licensing review on an ordinary Tuesday
Surveyors ask for the same things every time: signed treatment plans, current staff credentials and training, and a record of who documented what. When those live in binders and spreadsheets, a review means days of assembly.
In Dacnus, treatment plans are signed and locked with their version history kept, every expiring credential sits on one screen, and each staff member's personnel file comes out as a single PDF. Views and edits of resident and clinical records, and every signature, are written to an audit trail with who, what, and when.
In the platform
Questions buyers ask
Is Dacnus an EHR for group homes?
Yes. Dacnus holds the record a group home works from: admission documents, treatment plans, shift notes, therapy notes, and behavior logs, alongside staff scheduling, billing, and compliance. It is built for residential behavioral health rather than adapted from a clinic or primary care system.
Can direct care staff use it from a phone?
Yes. In the staff view, staff see their own shifts, request open shifts and swaps, clock in and out, and ask for time off without calling the office.
What can a parent or guardian see?
Only what you allow. Activities, behavior, therapy, medications, and incidents are separate permissions, each off until a staff member turns it on for that resident. Guardian accounts require multi-factor authentication, and access expires after 90 days unless it is renewed.
Which states does Dacnus work in?
Every state. Dacnus was first built and proven inside a licensed Arizona residential program and is available to residential programs anywhere in the United States. Each state names and licenses this level of care differently: in California it is a short-term residential therapeutic program (STRTP), in Texas a general residential operation (GRO) providing treatment services, and in Arizona a behavioral health residential facility (BHRF). Our guide to residential behavioral health licenses by state lists every state.
Does it work for a single home?
Yes. Dacnus scales from one home to an organization of several facilities and units, with each resident keeping one record throughout.
Guides for this kind of program
Other programs Dacnus serves
See a group home's day in Dacnus
Tell us how your program runs today and we'll walk through Dacnus with your own setup on screen.