Congratulations to the latest CARE Certified agency, McMan Youth, Family and Community Services. The McMan leadership team has diligently worked to fully implement CARE and serve the best interests of children and families. Throughout numerous challenges including significant staff turnover, changes in leadership and a global pandemic, staff throughout the organization not only worked to maintain CARE implementation progress but even increased their efforts. In addition, McMan has regularly participated in and contributed to the International CARE CoP since its inception. Like their founders, “Not only do they (leadership and staff) believe that things should be different, they believe that things can be different. And so, they make them different. “
- Posted on September 20, 2023
American Children’s Home invested very early in the CARE model as part of our research project supported by The Duke Foundation grant. Their early adoption of the CARE model made a significant contribution to building the evidence for CARE. Through their leadership and strong support for CARE, American Children’s Home held the CARE model through the last few difficult years. American Children’s Home has maintained a long-term commitment to improving the lives of children and families that it serves.
The Community Health Resources group home team continues to work in the best interests of the young people, advocating for what will help them succeed in adulthood, and maintain important connections with their family and community. Their dedicated, long-serving professional team has worked tirelessly over these last very stressful years to maintain a high quality of care and treatment. They have held the CARE model through this period by quickly addressing practices that do not align with the CARE evidence-based principles, providing support and supervision, and openly seeking feedback and assistance from the Cornell team. They consistently strive to put in place improvements in the best interests of children and young people.
Oak Hill Ranch is an integral partner in the on-going development of the CARE model as well as how agencies maintain fidelity and sustain CARE. The organization hosts professionals from all over the world assisting them as they consider implementing an evidence-based program model. As part of the CARE Academy, they provide support and encouragement to new agencies as they start their CARE journey and actively support a Canadian Community of Practice. OHR has become a model of excellence within the province of Alberta as well as the country of Canada. Other organizations have followed their lead and committed to implementing the CARE model to better serve the needs of their children and families. Not only have the children and families at OHR benefitted from their efforts, but the lives of children and families all over the province and the world have improved because of the generosity and commitment of OHR.
Ranch Ehrlo has fully invested in CARE, has implemented the CARE model throughout the agency, and is committed to improving the lives of children and families that it serves. Ranch Ehrlo, led by a strong leadership team, has made important practice decisions throughout its CARE journey resulting in congruency throughout the agency in CARE practices and a commitment to serving the best interests of children. Through active participation in regional and international communities of practice, their team has shared their valuable experiences and learning with CARE agencies around the world. By modeling the CARE principles and reflective practice, their leadership team helped to hold the staff and children through a pandemic and unprecedented rates of staff shortages.
St. Vincent’s Villa and Villa Maria School with Catholic Charities of Baltimore have fully invested in CARE, have implemented the CARE model, and are committed to improving the lives of children and families. Led by a strong leadership team, the organization has made important structural decisions throughout its CARE journey resulting in congruency in CARE practices throughout their programs and a commitment to serving the best interests of children. Through active participation in the international community of practice, the team has shared their valuable experiences and learning with CARE agencies around the world. By modeling the CARE principles and reflective practice, the leadership team helped to hold the staff and children through a pandemic and unprecedented rates of staff shortages.
Please click here to view the complete list of certified CARE agencies.
- Posted on August 29, 2023
RCCP recently hosted an international retreat!!
"Based on the conversations I have had since our time together, people left the retreat excited about their conversations and eager to continue our work together. I left the retreat feeling confident about the future of the RCCP and excited about all of the possibilities for our continued contribution to improving the quality of care for children and families." - Martha Holden, RCCP Director
RCCP hosted a three-day international retreat with our staff, consultants, and international partners from around the world. 60+ people were in attendance from the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, and Australia. We came together to talk about:
In between all of the intense discussion about out work, there was fun to be had as well. Good food. Fun games. Time with families. Much time spent talking about how excited people are about our work, and what the future holds for RCCP. It was a great event!
- Posted on August 2, 2023
CARE Edition 3 is now available:
The third edition of the CARE book is now available at Child Welfare League of America (CWLA).
Click here to order your copy today!
The CARE: Creating Conditions for Change program model is built on six principles that form the foundation for creating conditions for change. This model offers a framework for practice that enables caring adults and staff at all levels of the organization to provide such an experience. The core principles of being developmentally focused, family-involved, relationship-based, competence centered, trauma-informed, and ecologically oriented lay the groundwork for everyone to work cohesively in the best interests of the children in their care. AUTHOR: Martha Holden
- Posted on April 19, 2023
It is with a deep, profound sadness that we mourn the loss of our dear friend and colleague, Tom Endres. Tom passed away on September 14, 2021 while vacationing at Pike’s Peak in CO.
Tom dedicated his life to the field of residential child care for more than 40 years. His unwavering commitment to enriching the lives of children in care was extraordinary. Tom always knew that this was his true purpose in life. His Master’s degree from an Educateur program at Ohio State University was specifically designed for work in residential care. Tom was a foster and adoptive parent, and he worked for organizations in Ohio, Kentucky, and Florida before joining us at the Residential Child Care Project in 2001, where his impact on the field of residential care evolved to a more global scale.
Through his work with the RCCP, Tom helped improve the lives of many children and residential and school staff across the United States, Canada, Bermuda, Australia, and Europe. He embodied the principles that govern our work every day. His commitment to helping young people and his love of life was inspirational.
“Our hearts are breaking over the loss of our dear friend and colleague. We will miss his gentle kindness, unwavering commitment, and enduring drive to stay the course. We are all better for having worked (and played) with him. We love you Tom. You will always live in our hearts and minds.
- The RCCP Team”
Obituary and services information can be found at: https://www.egan-ryan.com/obituary/Thomas-Endres
University of Zurich, Switzerland | October 10-12, 2018
Hosted by: The ZHAW School of Social Work in collaboration with FICE, Switzerland
Residential Child Care Project director, Martha Holden, and Cornell consultant, Jack Holden, joined nine students in the seminar "Perspectives of International Social Work" on October 10-12, 2018 in Switzerland at the ZHAW School of Social Work. The goal of the seminar was to inform students about the CARE model, and to analyze its success as a research and practice informed program model. Full articles can be viewed at:
Ithaca, NY | September, 18-20, 2018
Hosted by: The Residential Child Care Project
The Residential Child Care Project (RCCP) hosted an event to provide leaders from residential child care agencies a forum to share experiences and improve practices at their agencies. A total of 36 leaders from 22 residential care agencies in three countries attended the conference, which took place from September 18 to 20 on Cornell’s campus. Each of the agencies who participated in the conference is in the process of implementing or using the Children and Residential Experiences: Creating Conditions for Change, or CARE, model – an evidence-based program developed by the RCCP to improve the social dynamics in residential care settings. Click here for the link to the full article.
Dublin, Ireland | November 6-7, 2017 & Doncaster, UK | November 9-10, 2017
Hosted by: The Residential Child Care Project
The recent regional TCI events in the UK and Ireland were a great success, and we would like to share some material from those events. The pdf documents below are provided by Martha Holden. We hope that you find them informative and useful.
Brief CARE Model and Implementation ACWA-UK-IE.pdf
Two North Carolina school districts are implementing a crisis prevention and intervention system created at the BCTR that teaches school staff how to use trauma-informed practices to anticipate and de-escalate disruptive behavior, manage aggression and help students learn social and emotional skills.
Please visit the BCTR website for the full article by clicking here.
This report from summarizes the presentation that was delivered on April 29, 2016 at the ALIGN conference in Edmonton, Alberta. The first section describes the CARE model of practice (Children and Residential Experiences), and the model of implementation. The second section summarizes the results of a multisite study of CARE implementation in the USA.
The Residential Child Care Project (RCCP) held its fourth international conference on June 21 to 24, 2016 in Lake George, NY. The event titled, Building a Community of Practice, delivered as promised, uniting approximately 250 child caring professionals from 13 countries and laying the groundwork for an online community of practice dialogue. Included is an article detailing highlights from the event, perceptions from conference attendees, downloads, and links to blogs that stem from conference discussions. Click here to get the article.
Reflections from the, Building a Community of Practice International Conference: Write On Community of Practice, by Jack C. Holden, Michael Nunno, Dale Curry, Laura Steckley and Raymond Taylor.
Click here to download the article.The California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare (CEBC) listed CARE ias a Promising Research Evidence-based model. We want to extend our heartfe lt thanks to our colleagues around the world for their hard work and dedication, and to our CARE agencies for their amazing contributions to this process. Click here to learn more.
QuickTRIPs are summaries of research related to the Residential Child Care Project (RCCP) located at Cornell University in the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research. Research topics are inspired by and for practitioners at the RCCP. If you have comments, suggestions, or an idea for a research topic related to the work of RCCP, contact Eugene Saville, as20@cornell.edu.. We’d love to hear from you! Below is a listing of QuickTRIPS published since 2017.
OVERCOMING CHALLENGES WITH THE LIFE SPACE INTERVIEW (Published March, 2019)
Implementation of the Therapeutic Crisis Intervention (TCI) System includes use of the Life Space Interview (LSI) after a young person experiences a crisis. In the LSI, staff follow a series of seven steps to help young people process and learn from the experience. This QuickTRIP shares: 1) TCI trainer reported challenges and successes when implementing the LSI in residential or school settings; and 2) solutions for addressing these challenges.
THE LIFE SPACE INTERVIEW (Published April 2018)
The Life Space Interview is a verbal strategy for providing active intervention in young people’s lives. Referred to as “the clinical exploitation of life events”, staff can use the LSI to help children move from impulse to self-regulation to self-mastery. Trainers play a key role in helping staff understand the importance of implementing high quality LSIs.
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