The Residential Child Care Project (RCCP) is receiving a grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to serve as part of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network.
The focus of the five-year, $2 million grant is to improve training available to Therapeutic Foster Parents (TFP) and agency staff who work with and support those parents and children. RCCP will develop a new training program by adapting, updating, and integrating two current RCCP programs — the Therapeutic Crisis Intervention Program for Families (TCIF) and Children and Residential Experiences: Creating Conditions for Change (CARE).
CARE, a trauma-informed, evidence-based program model provides a set of evidence-informed principles that emphasize building developmental relationships, maintaining trauma-sensitive environments, and working effectively with biological families.
TCIF is an evidence-informed curriculum that prepares foster parents to therapeutically prevent, de-escalate, or manage challenging behaviors.
Development of the new training program will also include a review of current scientific literature and focus groups with stakeholders. To improve accessibility, both TFP and Staff training will include materials to facilitate learning in three modalities: in-person training, live virtual training, and self-paced e-learning. The new program will be disseminated through a “train-the-trainer” model.
The grant also includes funding to train an initial cadre of 240 trainers, who will receive ongoing technical assistance and consultation as they train TFPs and staff in their own agencies.
