Register for RCCP’s “Building a Community of Practice” conference

The BCTR's Residential Child Care Project (RCCP)  is hosting its fourth International Conference for Therapeutic Crisis Intervention (TCI) and Children and Residential Experiences: Creating Conditions for Change (CARE) on June 21-24, 2016 in Lake George, NY. This event will highlight the importance of communities of practice in creating conditions for learning which lead to improving our practice and outcomes for children and families.

Preliminary Program

Featured Speakers

• Junlei Li, PhD, Co-Director and Associate Professor of the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media at Saint Vincent College, Latrobe, PA
• John Lyons, PhD, Senior Policy Fellow, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL
• Howard Bath, PhD, Former Children’s Commissioner of The Northern Territory, Brisbane, Australia
• Xavier McElrath-Bey, MA, Youth Justice Advocate, Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, Chicago IL
• James P. Anglin, PhD, Professor, School of Child and Youth Care, University of Victoria, BC Canada
• Laura Steckley, PhD, Course Director, MSc Advanced Residential Child Care;Joint Editor, Scottish Journal of Residential Child Care; School of Social Work & Social Policy/CELCIS; University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
• Graham McPheat, Msc, Bed, Dip SW; Course Leader MSc Child and Youth Care Studies by Distance Learning; Senior Teaching Fellow, Social Work Lead, School of Social Work and Social Policy; University of Strathclyde Glasgow, UK
• Janis Whitlock, PhD, MPH, Cornell Research Program on Self-Injury and Recovery, Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research, Cornell University, NY
• Angela Stanton-Greenwood, MA, Med, CQSE, Lead Mentor and Positive Behaviour Coach, Hesley Group and Instructor, TCI Europe coordinator, Doncaster, UK
• Troy Kennedy, Assistant to the Associate Executive, LaSalle School, Albany, NY USA

Panel Discussions

A panel made up of young people in care and family members will discuss their experiences and share what they need from a system of care.

Small Group Sessions

There will be opportunities to meet in groups and community of practice sessions to share innovations in trauma-informed interventions, implementing TCI in School settings, supporting developmental relationships, struggling for the congruency in the application of CARE principles or TCI practices throughout an organization.

Research Papers and Focus Groups

Researchers will have a forum to present research papers, conduct focus groups, and work with other researchers to discuss research, dissemination of research findings, and translational research.

Writing Workshop

Participants desiring to write a paper, an article, or presentation can receive assistance from published and experienced writers.

Trainer Certification

TCI trainers may attend this conference in lieu of a TCI update and apply for recertification. Opportunities for recertification testing will be made available on June 21, the afternoon before the opening conference reception.

CARE trainers may attend this conference in lieu of a CARE recertification workshop and apply for recertification. Opportunities for recertification testing will be made available the morning of June 22 before the opening session.

Registration

The registration fee at this 3-day conference is $725.00 USD. The conference fee will cover all programs including the Tuesday evening reception, Wednesday and Thursday lunches, Wednesday night BBQ dinner, Thursday night dinner cruise on Lake George, conference keynotes, panel presentation, small group sessions and workshops, as well as morning and afternoon refreshments.

Early Registration Fee of $675.00 USD will be charged to those individuals or organizations that can register participants by January 15, 2016. In order to qualify, you must fill out the attached registration information and send a check or purchase order postmarked prior to January 15, 2016. If you have registered and cannot attend the conference, 50% of the fee will be refunded if we receive notice prior to March 31, 2016. After March 31, 2016 this early registration fee is non-refundable.

Group rate (registration of 3 or more participants) $650.00 USD per person.

A rate of $600.00 USD is being offered to individuals who are presenting conference workshops (2 presenters per workshop) and professionally certified TCI trainers.

Please address any questions regarding registration to: Alissa Medero at ab358@cornell.edu.

Request for Proposals

Conference organizers are requesting proposals for workshop sessions, research paper presentations, and innovation group discussions. The proposals must be post marked, faxed, or e-mailed no later than November 30, 2015 to be considered. Authors of proposals accepted for the conference will be notified by January 15, 2016. The conference sponsors reserve the sole right to accept or reject any proposal, and to limit to 2 the number of presenters listed in the program. Only 2 presenters per workshop will receive the presenter registration rate of $600.00 USD.

We invite you to submit your proposal on one of the following or related topics:

• Family engagement
• Improving the quality of adult/child relationships
• Trauma informed interventions and programs
• Reflective practice
• Innovative training strategies
• Quality improvement models
• Integration of evidence informed practices into programming
• Creating a safe environment/culture of safety
• Enhancing programming and enriching the environment
• External agency influences on residential care, foster care, schools, juvenile justice programs
• Cultural competence
• Data informed decision-making
• Implementation strategies
• Organizational congruence

If you have a proposal that does not fit any of these tracks, please explain fully in a cover letter. In order to have your proposal reviewed, please follow the directions below. Any proposal that does not conform to the outline and requirements below or that has missing information is likely to be rejected.

Full conference and registration information is available here.

RCCP at the 2014 EUSARF conference

The 13th European Scientific Association on Residential and Family Care for Children and Adolescents Conference (EUSARF) 2014 was held in Copenhagen, Denmark on September 2-5, 2014 and the BCTR's Residential Child Care Project (RCCP) was well represented. This conference is held biannually and presents an opportunity for researchers and practitioners from Europe and around the world to exchange and discuss the latest international research and practice in child and family care. The heading for this year’s conference was "Making a Difference," focusing on ways to translate positive experiences and outcomes into best practices that make a difference in the lives of vulnerable children and their families.

Nunno, Holden, Izzo, and Kuhn

The RCCP's Michael Nunno, Martha Holden, Charlie Izzo, Frank Kuhn, Bill Martin, and Sharon Butcher presented a symposium on Implementing, Evaluating and Sustaining a Research and Principle-based Program Model in Residential Care with Children and Adolescents: Learning from the Cornell CARE Program Experience. During this 2-hour symposium, the RCCP faculty

• gave an overview of the CARE model and implementation process
• shared the preliminary results from the 4- year quasi-experimental study of 14 agencies implementing the CARE model
• discussed the complexity of implementing a principled-based model in residential therapeutic care organizations
• and used a single case study to illustrate the impact of CARE and the RCCP’s Therapeutic Crisis Intervention (TCI) System on one organization that has a range of services to children and families

The conference also saw the launch of a new book, Therapeutic Residential Care For Children and Youth: Developing Evidence-Based International Practice, edited by J. Whitaker, J. del Valle and L. Holmes (Jessica Kinsgley Publishers). Martha Holden, James Anglin, Michael Nunno, and Charlie Izzo wrote the chapter, Engaging the Total Therapeutic Residential Care Program in a Process of Quality Improvement: Learning from the CARE Model, contributing the effort to take an international look at the current practice in therapeutic residential care.

Nunno delivers keynote at British Institute for Learning Disabilities conference

Michael Nunno delivered the keynote address at the annual British Institute for Learning Disabilities (BILD) conference in Glasgow, Scotland on May 9, 2014. His talk addressed "Elements of organisational toxicity in children's treatment facilities that leads to aggression and maltreatment." He was also a guest speaker at BILD's pre-conference research workshop, discussing "Managing the journey through the complexity of trauma informed care: Lessons from the implementation of a principle-based program model." Dr. Nunno is a senior extension associate with the Residential Child Care Project in the Bronfenbrenner Center.

The 2014 BILD conference outlined ways to turn research into daily practice and showed how positive behavior support approaches can be applied across a wide range of settings and supports. Additionally, speakers provided examples of frameworks for implementation, including qualitative outcomes from international perspectives.

A popular feature at the conference was the 20-foot-long graphic facilitation wall, where the messages from the event, and the role and future for positive behavior support were illustrated by artists from Creative Connection (detail featuring Michael Nunno below).

BCTR at the Society for Research on Adolescence meeting

Stephen Hamilton and Mary Agnes Hamilton

The 15th Biannual Meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence was held in Austin, TX on March 20, 2014. The 2014 conference theme of Social Justice was addressed by faculty, staff, and students from the BCTR's Cornell Research Program on Self-Injury and Recovery,  Cornell Youth in Society, and The Role of Grandparents in the Lives of Adolescent Grandchildren.

•  Deinera Exner-Cortens, former BCTR graduate assistant, presented the poster Adolescents’ Views on Psychological Aggression in Dating Relationships, which was co-authored with BCTR director John Eckenrode, Dawn Schrader, and Emily Rothman
• Mary Agnes Hamilton presented a poster, Functional roles: What important adults do for youth, which was selected for a second presentation as part of a program on Adolescence in Diverse Contexts. It was co-authored with Stephen Hamilton, Deborah Sellers, and David DuBois

• Stephen Hamilton participated in the roundtable discussion, Improving the uses of evidence in working with young people: International perspectives on challenges and opportunities.
• Stephen Hamilton and  Mary Agnes Hamilton presented a paper, When is a youth program leader a mentor?
• Kimberly Kopko presented the paper A Dyadic Analysis of Parenting Behaviors and Relationship Quality Among Adolescent Grandchildren and Custodial Grandparents, which was co-authored with Megan L. Dolbin-MacNab and Rachel Dunifon
• Kemar Prussien, a junior Psychology major and BCTR research assistant, presented a poster co-authored with Janis Whitlock: Parent-Child Agreement in Understanding the What and Why of Child Non-Suicidal Self-Injury.
• Janis Whitlock and Deinera Exner-Cortens were co-chairs for the media and communications sub-committee, which hosted a pre-conference, Translating Research Evidence to Policy and Practice.
• Additionally, BCTR faculty affiliates Jane Mendle and Tony Burrow both gave presentations at the conference.

BCTR at the Global Implementation Conference

The Global Implementation Conference (GIC) was held in Washington DC on August 19-21, 2013. Several BCTR staff attended the conference and were on the program. The GIC provided a unique forum to share the latest information about implementation science, practice, and policy that supports organizational change, system transformation, and implementation in human services and other real-world settings. Participants from diverse backgrounds and settings gathered to share ideas and research. The 2013 GIC theme was Putting Implementation into Practice: Tools for Quality and Sustainability.

Izzo

Charles Izzo and Frank Kuhn from The Residential Child Care Project presented Examining the Flow of Implementation Events to Help Interpret Evaluation Results and Inform Programming at the Measures & Tools practice group.

Dotterweich and Powers

Marilyn Ray, Jutta Dotterweich, and Jane Powers from ACT for Youth presented Using Quality Implementation Framework to Inform Evaluation and Quality Improvement at the Implementation Science Synthesis practice group.

BCTR at the CU Action Research Conference

BCTR faculty affiliates Davydd Greenwood and Leonardo Vargas-Méndez convened the Cornell University Action Research Conference on December 5, 2012. Jamila Walida Simon and Jennifer Tiffany attended on behalf of the BCTR, along with a number of BCTR faculty affiliates.

Jennifer Tiffany (left) and Davydd Greenwood (center) at the conference

During the morning session on “Institutionalization of Action Research” members of the editorial board of the Action Research Journal shared interests, expertise, and ideas with Cornell graduate students, staff, faculty and local community members. The afternoon session focused on “Best Practices in Action Research” and was a collaborative examination of work done in teaching, environmental planning, health care, international development, and other settings, with a special focus on the work done at Tompkins-Tioga-Seneca BOCES, Cooperative Extension, the Ithaca School District, and various local social service agencies.

The event built on strategic planning meetings held earlier in the week, marking the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Action Research Journal. Editorial board members Hilary Bradbury-Huang (Oregon Health and Sciences University), Mary Brydon-Miller (University of Cincinnati), Maria Teresa Castillo-Burguete (CINVESTAV, Mexico), Victor Friedman (Ruppin Institute, Israel), Patricia Gaya (University of Bristol, UK), Svante Lifvergren (Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden), Ernie Stringer (Curtin University of Technology, Australia), and Davydd Greenwood (Cornell University) worked to set the journal’s course for the coming ten years. The key element of the strategic plan that emerged was the concept of “ARJ+” in which the journal will serve as an anchor for a larger initiative that includes extensive use of social media to foster discussion of issues raised in the journal, conferences, and other kinds of support networks to promote action research in a wider variety of settings.

The conference was sponsored by Cornell’s Public Service Center, Engaged Learning + Research/Engaged Cornell, and the Cornell Participatory Action Research Network (CPARN).

BCTR at “The Future of Action and Engaged Research” CU search conference

Small group discussion at the conference

On September 8 and 9, BCTR's Elaine Wethington and Jennifer Tiffany participated in a search conference on engaged learning and action research at Cornell that brought together over thirty faculty and staff from across the university. Davydd Greenwood (Anthropology) and Richard Feldman (Language Resource Center) facilitated the two-day collaborative reflection, planning, and action design process. Stephen Hamilton, Neema Kudva, Becky Stoltzfus, Ray Craib, Melanie Dreyer-Lude, Richard Kiely, Sofía Villenas, and Leonardo Vargas Méndez were members of the conference planning committee.

Search conferences are a widely used participatory method for engaging people with diverse perspectives in shaping actions that can create the future conditions and relationships that they identify as preferable to the “probable future” that would emerge without their deliberate and carefully planned intervention. The conference started with participants constructing a detailed history of action research and engaged learning at Cornell and concluded with formation of action groups. Processes designed by Kurt Lewin, as well as Davydd Greenwood and other action researchers, were used to facilitate in-depth planning.

Elaine Wethington’s and Jennifer Tiffany’s contributions to the search conference built on the BCTR’s focus on bi-directional translational research; expertise in how federal funding initiatives and human participant protections relate to outreach and equitable community relationships; commitment to fostering student and faculty expertise in partnering with communities; and its key role in College of Human Ecology and Cornell Cooperative Extension outreach and extension efforts.

Brainstorming at the conference

The conference was titled The Future of Action and Engaged Research at Cornell University - A Search Conference. Schools, offices, centers, programs, institutes, and academic departments represented were Academic Diversity Initiatives, Africana Studies & Research Center, American Indian Program, Anthropology, Asian American Studies Program, City and Regional Planning, Civil & Environmental Engineering, Classics, Comparative Literature, Design and Environmental Analysis, Development Sociology, Center for Community Engaged Learning & Research, Engineering, Environmental & Indigenous Studies, Farmworker Program, History, Human Development, Knight Institute for Writing, Landscape Architecture, Language Resource Center, Law School, Mann Library, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Mediterranean Studies Initiative, Natural Resources, Near Eastern Studies, Nutritional Sciences, Office of Sustainability, Performing & Media Arts, Public Service Center, Residential Life, Science & Technology Studies, Southeast Asia Studies, Tompkins County Extension, Vet School, and William Keeton House.

Complementary Strengths findings presented at World AIDS Conference

Jennifer Tiffany presented results from the Complementary Strengths Research Partnership at the 19th World AIDS Conference in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, July 25, 2012 as part of a panel on Young People, HIV, and Sexual and Reproductive Health Services.

The paper, co-authored with John Eckenrode, Deinera Exner-Cortens, and Sara Birnel-Henderson and titled Active Program Participation and HIV Risk Reduction among Urban Youth, highlighted the new measure of youth program participation generated by the study; significant positive associations among program participation, social connectedness, and HIV risk reduction scores; possible impacts of average setting-level participation scores on individual youth risk reduction practices; and connections between longer program involvement increased impact of youth participation on risk reduction practices.

The panel was chaired by two youth HIV activists:

Cristina Jade Peña
Story on Cristina
Video on Cristina

Pablo Torres Aguilera
Story on Pablo
Video on Pablo

Other papers on the panel addressed community development programs and anti-retroviral therapy for youth in Zimbabwe, national adolescent HIV prevention strategies in 20 countries with high HIV prevalence rates, and strategies to make programs focused on pregnancy prevention and HIV risk reduction work in tandem.

The Complementary Strengths Research Project is supported in part by award #R21NR009764 from the NIH/National Institute of Nursing Research and by USDA grant #NYC-323442-0219950. The content of the report is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute of Nursing Research, the National Institutes of Health, or the USDA.

2012 RCCP Conference connects international attendees around improving child and family care

Sandra Bloom presenting

The Third International Conference of the Residential Child Care Project, In the Best Interests of the Child: Caring for Them—Caring for Us, was held May 9-11, 2012 in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Three hundred people attended from the U.S. (27 states), Canada (6 provinces), England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, Ireland, Bermuda, Australia (5 states/territories), and South Africa.

The conference engages professionals working with children and families to improve the quality of their care and treatment, offering attendees a unique opportunity to exchange ideas and experiences. Keynote speakers were:

• Larry Brendtro, Ph.D., Founder, Circle of Courage Institute, and Dean, Starr Commonwealth Institute for Training
• Sandra Bloom, M.D., Associate Professor, Drexel University, and Founder, Sanctuary Institute
• Kenneth V. Hardy, Ph.D., Professor, Drexel University, and Director, Eikenberg Institute for Relationships
• Paul Baker, Ph.D., Director, NorthStar Educational and Therapeutic Services, and Assistant Director, Clinical Department, Allambi Youth Services
• David Allen, Associate Clinical Director, Directorate of Learning Disability Services, Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board, and Professor in the Clinical Psychology of Intellectual Disabilities, Welsh Centre for Learning Disabilities
• James Anglin, Ph.D., Associate Vice-President Academic and Director of International Affairs, University of Victoria

Attendees sharing lunch

The event was marked by a strong sense of community and shared purpose, as indicated by attendee comments in the event evaluation forms:

I love that we had the ability to hear from and question true experts in the field.

I appreciated the depth of information on trauma and the brain.

I am re-energized and motivated.

and, in response to the question, "What did you like best about the program?":

The feeling of a wonderful community of people passionately connected to the healing of our children.

Conference program

BCTR presence at the Society for Research on Adolescence biennial meeting

The Society for Research on Adolescence held its biennial meeting in Vancouver on March 7th and the BCTR was well represented.

Stephen Hamilton organized and chaired two sessions: a paper symposium, Social Inventions in Different Countries to Improve the Transition to Adulthood with Mary Agnes Hamilton; Constance Flanagan; and Ana Lazzaretti & Silvia Koller; and a roundtable, Linking Research with the Practice of Youth Development with Mary Agnes Hamilton; Reed Larson; David DuBois; Nicole Yohalem.

Janis Whitlock moderated the roundtable, Ethical Considerations in Engaging Vulnerable Populations in Self-Harm Research. Janis also chaired the symposium, Adolescent Self-Harm across Culture and Context: Similarities and Differences in Risk and Protection and served as co-chair of the SRA sub-committee on Media and Communications.

Mary Agnes Hamilton presented the paper, Abriendo Caminos: Action Research to Strengthen Supports to Vulnerable Youth in Latin America.

Kimberly Kopko presenting

Rachel Dunifon and Kimberly Kopko presented the poster, Relationship Quality and Parenting among Grandparent Caregivers and Teens (view poster).

Deinera Exner-Cortens co-authored (with Jennifer Tiffany and John Eckenrode) and presented the poster, Longitudinal Associations Between Sexual Risk Reduction and Program Participation in a Sample of Urban Adolescents (view poster).  Deinera also presented the poster Teen Dating Violence and Subsequent Health Outcomes in a National Sample of Youth, which was co-authored with John Eckenrode and Emily Rothman.

Additionally, with HD graduate student Rachel Sumner, Stephen Hamilton co-authored a poster, Are School-Related Jobs Better? (view poster); and Jennifer Tiffany co-authored the poster Access and Barriers to Resources that Support Parents as Sex Educators: Parent Focus Group Data on Family, Race/Ethnicity, and the Community with graduate student Nicole Ja.