Family-Focused Practice in Out-of-Home Care provides practical hands-on support to help agencies bring a family focus to their policy, administrative, and program structures. It goes further to describe an agency's process of change from a traditional out-of-home care agency to one that develops and improves relationships with families of children in care.

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

Adopt a more effective approach to temporary and long-term residential care! Presenting the voices of staff, parents, and residents, Family-Centered Services in Residential Treatment: New Approaches for Group Care examines the changes and challenges of residential care from the old-fashioned orphanage to the modern group-care home. These thoughtful essays offer suggestions and methods to provide more effective services in temporary and long-term settings. Containing case studies, personal experiences, and professional insights about the potentials and limitations of residential care, this reliable resource will help you develop improved services for youths and their families. Family-Centered Services in Residential Treatment presents fresh evaluations of new and old techniques as well as ideas for meeting individual needs. By building connections among parents, youths, and staff, you can develop more successful treatment programs and encourage stronger family ties even when children are best served by long-term residential care. Family-Centered Services in Residential Treatment addresses the crucial questions of residential care, including: how can staff ease children's transitions into and out of residential care? what do parents of emotionally disturbed youth need from the staff and professionals in a residential care setting? what was right--and wrong--about the old-fashioned orphanage? Could such an institution work today? how does the transition to the teamwork approach affect staff members? when is residential care most beneficial to children? what kind of care is appropriate for AIDS orphans? Family-Centered Services in Residential Treatment will help psychologists, therapists, and social workers unite theory and practice to create a family-oriented environment for troubled clients.

"Nurses play a vital role in improving the safety and quality of patient car -- not only in the hospital or ambulatory treatment facility, but also of community-based care and the care performed by family members. Nurses need know what proven techniques and interventions they can use to enhance patient outcomes. To address this need, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), with additional funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has prepared this comprehensive, 1,400-page, handbook for nurses on patient safety and quality -- Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses. (AHRQ Publication No. 08-0043)." - online AHRQ blurb, http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/nurseshdbk/

Published in 1997, this study focused on building and empirically validating a model of family centred group care. This is an alternative to the traditional model of group child care that is primarily child centred and which reflects the notion of group care as a substitute for parental care. The model represents a step forward in the conceptualization of group care practice as both child centred and family affirming. The Family Centred Group Care instrument used in the study is unique in that this is the first to measure a model of group care empirically. The book will be of interest to child welfare practitioners, social workers, child care workers and other human service personnel as well as managers of agencies that provide group care services for children and at-risk youth. Researchers and policy makers will also find this book useful as the study advances the application of empirical methodology to human service programs.

Use this newly developed family-oriented approach to be a better youth worker! In A Child and Youth Care Approach to Working with Families, practitioners and trainers in a new child methodology show you how to expand your youth program to involve family work using the Child and Youth Care Approach. This book provides a new way of looking at work with families in which the helpers are involved in the daily life of the families they are supporting. This book will be valuable to practitioners and instructors of the Child and Youth Care Approach as well as to youth workers, foster parents, and social workers who want to develop their own knowledge and skills in working with families. A Child and Youth Care Approach to Working with Families is designed to help youth care workers engage in a working relationship with young people and families that can facilitate change and allow families to live together more effectively with less stress. This book emphasizes that the family be involved in the care and treatment of young people. The authors reveal methods for connecting with each family by reflecting their rules, roles, culture, rhythm, timing, and style. This book will help you: develop your proficiency with the Child and Youth Care Approach to working with families shift from working in residential-only programs to in-home family prevention create as many moments of connection as possible among family members learn what boundaries need to be maintained to gain credibility with families provide effective supervision for staff working with families create activity-oriented family-focused work to develop family relationships and more! The authors of A Child and Youth Care Approach to Working with Families offer unique insight into the successes and failures of those who have moved into this area of helping troubled youths and adolescents. Special features of this book include specific learning exercises and short stories and case scenarios for you to practice alone or with your colleagues, as well as tables and figures. This book will introduce students, practitioners, and programs directors fully to this latest development in the field and help them engage more effectively with families. All royalties from this book will go to support CYC-Net (www.cyc-net.org).

Find out how group care for children has changed in the last 20 years Group Care Practice with Children and Young People Revisited focuses on the core issues that shape the quality of care that’s provided in institutional and residential care settings, as well as day care services that rely on the group process. Leading authorities on residential group care practice from around the world examine practice concepts centered on three broad themes: working directly with children; working indirectly to support children and their families; and organizational influences on practice. This unique book offers valuable insights for dealing with the daily challenges of working with young people in responsive group care. Group Care Practice with Children and Young People Revisited builds on contemporary themes that were explored by the editors more than 20 years ago in Group Care for Children: Concept and Issues, and Group Care Practice with Children, both out of print. Contributors to this updated collection put a fresh spin on the original material, as well as cross-cultural analysis from both sides of the Atlantic, Australia and New Zealand, Malaysia, China, and the United Arab Emirates. They revisit the key issues identified in the earlier books and provide personal and professional reflections on what has happened to their practice themes since the early 1980s. Special attention is paid to how social policy imperatives—normalization, de-institutionalization, mainstreaming, least restrictive environment, minimal intervention, and diversion—have reshaped the field, group care methods and skills needed for direct and indirect care, and group care as an occupational. Group Care Practice with Children and Young People Revisited examines (and re-examines): the relationships between group care practice and education how group care programs can become hostile to families primary care in secondary settings the importance of shared language in a group care center group development how group composition can influence the overall functioning of the group managing occupational stresses in group care practice patterns of career development in child and youth care economic influences that impact group care challenges facing the future of group care services for children and much more Group Care Practice with Children and Young People Revisited is a must-read for youth case workers, child and youth care educators, and anyone working in child welfare, including youth justice managers, administrators, and policymakers.