Waterford Coutry School

Waterford Country School

OUR JOURNEY INTO CARE

Summer 2009

Waterford Country School is very fortunate to be one of the first agencies in the country to experience Cornell University’s new Children and Residential Experiences (CARE) Program. CARE is a “best practice” model that creates conditions for change for youth in congregate care.

We have been involved with Cornell since we adopted the Therapeutic Crisis Intervention (TCI) Program in 1994. TCI is a comprehensive program designed to guide staff in their working with youth during a crisis. 100% of our direct care, clinical, education and administrative staff are trained in this model and we currently have 10 certified instructors, two on the “Professional” level. Three of those 10 are also certified to teach TCI for Family Care Providers, which is a training we offer to our foster parents and to parents of youth in our other treatment programs.

CARE, just released in 2008, is a brilliantly crafted framework for children in care based upon a thorough review of the literature and research. It identifies six principal domains of treatment and builds a set of guidelines for staff around these domains. The CARE framework meets each child where they are developmentally and, with staff assistance, support and encouragement, helps guide them to an enhanced level of functioning. The model is built upon the premise that children do well if they can. This framework charges staff to find what contributes to a child’s developmental disruption and to address those issues to get them back on track.

Through the support of a technical assistance grant from the Connecticut Department of Children and Families, we were introduced to CARE in the fall of 2008. In January of 2009, we received five days of training from Martha Holden, the program author, Tom Endres and Jack Holden from the Cornell Residential Child Care Project. In April, nineteen of the previously trained staff completed a 3-day Train the Trainers program.

This summer the nineteen trainers were divided into three teams and have begun the process of training the 300 employees of the Waterford Country School. All staff, in all of our programs including support staff, will receive this training. CARE emphasizes the importance of a congruent approach on all levels and across all persons, the youth in care, their families and the staff.

Prepared by:

William Martin, MHSA Assistant Executive Director