Transforming Trauma-Informed Residential Services: Out of the Abyss
Promoting resilience and recovery for children who have experienced complex trauma requires a multi-layered, multi-modal approach across child- and family-serving systems. This presentation will introduce tenets critical to creating a complex trauma-informed residential system of care, and share strategies and techniques for putting these tenets into operation. Specifically, the presentation will focus on a training demonstration of “Building Communities of Care” (BCC) , an evidence-informed, ARC-based training curriculum developed by Justice Resource Institute. BCC was developed for staff and caregivers to teach ways to create therapeutic, trauma-informed environments that best support the success of youth impacted by chronic, complex trauma. Participants will learn about the about the core steps involved in integration and implementation of this training model in milieu settings. This presentation will conclude with interactive audience discussion of model implementation, adaptation, adoption and dissemination.
Presenters: Dr. Joseph Spinnazola, Kari Beserra, LMHC, Robert Gervais, Stacey Forrest
Adverse Childgood Experience Survey (ACEs): The Science of Trauma and its Impact on Residential Treatment
An illustration of how ACE's are relevant to residential care, we will discuss challenges associated with becoming an "ACE informed" organization; incorporating ACE's into training, practice, and programming; and demonstrate how growing ACE awareness among all staff can positively impact the milieu, interdisciplinary collaboration, and transform agency culture.
Presenter: David Wallace, LCSW-R
AACRC Position Paper Deep Dive: Strategic Interventions to Advance Youth Permanency
This presentation, derived from AACRC's 13th position paper, focuses on the overarching goal for all children in out-of-home care to achieve safety, permanence, and well-being, and the role of those providing quality residential interventions in accomplishing this mission. While it particularly focuses on children and youth in the child welfare system, it is applicable to all young people and families. With residential interventions a necessary therapeutic option in community systems of care, it is important that residential providers embrace their critical role in helping children and families move toward permanency and achieve successful outcomes.
Presenter: James Lister, MBA
AACRC Position Paper Deep Dive: Towards the Rational Use of Psychotropic Medications
This presentation, stemming from AACRC's 12 position paper, builds on the previous papers in the Redefining Residential Series to address psychotropic medication use in residential treatment. It briefly: reviews the evidence for use of psychotropic medication with children and youth and the complications presented by youth typically served in residential centers; identifies several critical practices residential programs should consider implementing; discusses barriers; and calls for an increased emphasis on what is described as rational use of psychotropic medications, prescribed in conjunction with other treatment modalities and careful monitoring of progress and outcomes.
Presenter: Robert Foltz, Psy.D.
AACRC Position Paper Deep Dive: Ensuring Competent Residential Interventions for Youth with Diverse Gender and Sexual Identities and Expressions
This presentation, derived from AACRC's 12th position paper, focuses on the many issues faced in the field in providing quality residential interventions for youth of sexual diversity, including sexual orientation and gender identity. For lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex, and two-spirit (LGBTQI2-S) youth in residential care, open expression of sexuality or gender identity can be a significant challenge, with many barriers faced both within the program and in the community at large.
Presenters: Mira Krishnan, Ph.D., Douglas Glick, LCSW, C-SOTP
