Stepping Down from Residential: An Opportunity for Coordinating Care with Foster Care

Youth who are served in residential treatment centers typically have permanency goals that include stepping down from residential into treatment foster care especially when reunification with family is not an option. Currently, there are no evidence supported interventions or effective models of coordinated care to assist in the transition to less restrictive care settings, especially for older youth who have lived in restrictive care settings for long periods of time. Our poster presentation will highlight the transportability of an evidence-based pre-service training curriculum used with treatment foster parents that has also been used to prepare residential direct care workers. The curriculum was developed to increase knowledge and skills around child development, trauma-informed care, and effective behavior management techniques. Providing the same pre-service training to residential direct care staff and treatment parents would be an ideal first step in coordinating care so that all providers are trained in the same interventions that would increase translation of skills from the residential setting to the treatment home.