Workshops | 2026 TRC Summit
Workshop Session 1
Identity, Belonging and Cultural Safety: Australia and UK perspectives on Strengthening Residential Care - Jubilee G36
Theme: Cultural identity and culturally appropriate practice
Facilitators: Natasha Urbano and Shelley Wall (Australia), Tam Cane and Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor (England)
Description:
Children and young people in residential care have often experienced trauma, disrupted relationships and disconnection from family, culture, community and identity. While residential care generally provides safety and increasingly offers therapeutic support, there remains an ongoing challenge to ensure that children’s identity, cultural connections and sense of belonging are recognised as fundamental to healing and lifelong wellbeing. This interactive workshop brings together international perspectives from Australia and the United Kingdom, integrating research, policy and frontline practice to explore how residential care can better protect and strengthen children’s identity, culture and belonging. Drawing on diverse experiences across residential care and the broader out of home care system, presenters will examine how relationships, culture, participation and self-determination can be embedded within everyday practice and organisational systems. Through discussion, storytelling, practical examples and audience participation, participants will reflect on the many dimensions of identity, including family, community, culture, language, spirituality and lived experience. The workshop will explore approaches informed by frameworks such as Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Placement Principle (SNAICC) and the Safer Spaces for Black Children in Care in England: Identity and Voice project. These will be considered alongside broader evidence and practice that move beyond compliance towards relational, culturally responsive and inclusive models of care. Participants will be encouraged to consider how these principles can inform policy, research and practice within their own jurisdictions. By fostering international dialogue and shared learning, the workshop aims to strengthen understanding of identity, belonging and cultural safety as essential foundations of therapeutic residential care and positive outcomes for children and young people.
Creating Possibility: International Perspectives on Innovative Residential Childcare - Jubilee G22
Theme: Outcome measurement – measuring what matters
Facilitators: James Cliffe, Janice Nicholson, Teri Owens (UK), Cindy Soang Park and Jung Eun-Gang (Korea)
Description:
This workshop brings together colleagues from the Korean Children’s Welfare Association, representing approximately 280 residential childcare organisations across Korea, and North Yorkshire Council’s No Wrong Door service in England for a dynamic and engaging exploration of innovative approaches to residential childcare. Drawing on experience from both Korea and England, this collaborative session will share insights into the Korean child welfare system and the English No Wrong Door model, highlighting the values, strengths and practice innovations that underpin each approach. The workshop will provide a unique opportunity for direct learning and exchange between two countries that share a commitment to improving outcomes for children and young people in residential care. Through this international partnership, presenters will explore how residential services can create aspirational, relationship-based environments that help children and young people thrive. Moving beyond an introduction to each system, the workshop will focus on a challenge facing residential care internationally: how do we create the conditions for innovation, ambition and excellence, and how do we overcome the barriers that can stand in the way? Using examples from practice in both Korea and England, participants will be encouraged to reflect on their own services, challenge conventional thinking and consider/share practical strategies for driving positive change. This interactive session will offer fresh perspectives, inspire new ideas and demonstrate how international collaboration can strengthen residential childcare practice and help shape the future of care for children and young people.
The CARE Program Model: Cross National Implementation Experiences - Jubilee G31
Theme:Local adaptation and implementation of CARE
Facilitators:Martha Holden (US), Amaia Bravo Artega (Spain), Angela Stanton-Greenwood, Laurence Stanton-Greenwood (UK)
Description:
If children are to thrive, they need to have a consistent, congruent experience regardless of the individual staff member or activity. The organization itself must create a culture, climate, and living environment that provides developmentally enriching relationships and experiences that motivate children to engage and stay engaged. The CARE model incorporates six evidence-informed principles that guide, inform, and help to integrate all elements of service delivery. These principles serve as an organizing framework that enables organizations to create a therapeutic milieu that helps children grow and develop through enhanced interactions focused on strengthening attachments and relationships, building competencies, adjusting expectations to account for children’s developmental stage and trauma history, involving families in the child’s care and treatment, and enriching dimensions of the environment.
CARE agency representatives from the US, UK/Ireland and Spain will briefly share some of the lessons they have learned from implementing CARE followed by discussion. The discussion will provide an opportunity to think and discuss together the learning and applicability for implementation of programmes and training, and how to support organisational change.
Unintended Consequences of Policy Initiatives on Therapeutic Residential Care (TRC): How Policy challenges the Principles of TRC - Jubilee Lecture Theatre
Theme: Unintended consequences of policy change
Facilitators:Christopher Bellonci (US) and Bethany Lee (US), Kevin Gallagher (UK)
Description:
Current policies in the UK and US have constrained residential care practice in ways that risk the very therapeutic promise of TRC. Reflecting on the TRC Consensus Statement definition, This workshop will describe the pressing policy challenges in the UK and US and how policy and its unintended consequences have shaped program structure, access, workforce, goals, and practice in residential programs. The session will highlight opportunities for innovation and facilitate larger group discussion and exchange.
Workshop Session 2
Measuring What Matters? Outcomes, Relationships, and the Things in Between - G36
Theme: Outcome measurement – measuring what matters
Facilitators: Mette Lausten (Denmark) and Elliot Smith (US)
Description:
This interactive workshop will explore the opportunities and challenges of measuring what matters in residential care. Drawing on international research, recent policy developments, and experience from both research and practice, participants will examine a range of approaches to understanding outcomes, including administrative data, survey measures, and indicators of relational quality and enduring relationships. The workshop will critically consider what different forms of measurement can tell us, what they may overlook, and how unintended consequences can arise when easily collected data becomes a proxy for the complex realities of children’s lives.
Protecting Idealism and Incorporating Pragmatism - Jubilee Lecture Theatre
Theme: Implementation of systemic change: local context
Facilitators: Rawan Ibrahim (Jordan) and Amanda Griffith (Family for Every Child (International))
Description:
Efforts to reform care systems are rightly grounded in the important ideal that children should grow up in safe and nurturing families. Translating this ideal into practice, however, requires attention to children’s diverse needs, local realities, and the capacity of care systems to provide safe and sustainable alternatives. This session will look at the place for residential care within the continuum of care and wider care reform. It will draw on a range of experiences of childcare reform from different parts of the world, including low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). It will explore the transformation of residential care, including the role of residential-care providers as partners in reform, alongside wider systems strengthening and change. This session will explore not just the technical aspects but also the political and economic realities that shape a reform process and the social and cultural context in which any changes take place. Participants will be invited to use these different lenses to consider the changes they are seeking to make, to share their own experience of opportunities and barriers and learn from others.
International Implementations of the CANS and TCOM: A Panel Discussion and Overview of the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) and Transformational Collaborative Outcomes Management (TCOM). - G22
Theme: CANS implementation and adaptation
Facilitators: John Lyons (US), Stefano Benzoni (Italy), Aly Thompson (US), Wendy Williams (UK) and Mark Owers (UK)
Description:
The workshop is designed to introduce participants to the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) and Transformational Collaborative Outcomes Management (TCOM) through a discussion of international implementations. A panel of four presenters will introduce the concepts of the CANS and TCOM and provide examples from a variety of implementation sites. The panel will describe one European country’s experience to date, discuss the applications of TCOM within a Regional Care Cooperative (RCC), share information about the use of decision support applications for youth in residential care, discuss training and certification requirements, and CANS experiences to date in England.
Inspections and Quality Standards in Residential Care - G31
Theme: Quality standards: implementation and evaluation
Facilitators: Jorge del Valle (Spain) and Shamra Boel-Studt (US), David Palsson (Sweden)
Description:
This workshop will bring together evidence and learning from a range of countries about the role of inspections and quality standards in children’s residential care. It will include a discussion on the possibilities and limits of elaborating quality standards and monitoring care quality in residential settings.
Workshop Session 3
Shared Family Care: Defining and exploring core elements - G31
Theme: Shared family care
Facilitators: Bethany Lee (US), Annemiek Harder (Netherlands), Laura Palareti (Italy), Chiara Monti (Italy), Jeri Damman (England)
Description:
Shared Family Care is an out-of-home placement where parents and children co-reside in a supervised and supportive environment. This session will introduce participants to three examples of Shared Family Care (in Italy, the Netherlands and England) that represent some of the diversity in whom the model serves, how, and in what kinds of settings. This workshop takes as its starting point one of the conclusions of our forthcoming book: that the field of Shared Family Care still lacks a clearly articulated, shared core practice model with features that can be adapted locally. Then, participants will be involved in an interactive activity and group discussion. This session is designed to take a first practical step in the direction of sketching the core principles that are, or can be, shared across different SFC models, drawing on the perspectives of the workshop participants.
What Matters to Youth: Advancing Real-Time Quality through Participatory Research–Practice Partnerships - Jubilee Lecture Theatre
Theme: Research in context: partnerships between research and practice
Facilitators: Kiran Modi (India) and Patrick Tyler (US)
Description:
This workshop addresses a persistent global challenge in residential care: not whether to include youth voice, but how to systematically embed it within decision-making, service improvement, and accountability. Drawing on a cross-national collaboration between Boys Town (United States) and Udayan Care (India), the session demonstrates how research–practice partnerships (RPPs), the Do Better framework, and measurement-based care (MBC) can be integrated with participatory, youth-centered research to advance system change.
The workshop advances a shift from conducting research on youth to conducting research with youth, positioning young people and families as co-creators of knowledge, measures, and solutions. A case example from Udayan Care’s Beyond 18 study illustrates how youth-informed findings translated into practice through initiatives such as the Sphere of Aftercare, Aftercare Outreach Programme, and LIFT Fellowship. These efforts exemplify an iterative cycle linking evidence generation to program design, policy influence, and improved transition supports, including access to education, livelihoods, and community-based services.
The session combines brief framing with interactive, role-based group work. Participants—engaging as policymakers, practitioners, care leavers, and NGO/government representatives—will define “what matters,” identify measurable indicators, and design feedback systems that convert data into action within an RPP framework. Digital tools and visual methods will support real-time capture of diverse perspectives, anchored by care leaver narratives.
By integrating research, practice, and lived experience, the workshop highlights how evidence can become more timely, culturally responsive, and actionable. It concludes with a global proposition: improving residential care requires embedding youth voice, measurement, and partnership within continuous system-level learning.
The Many Roles of Residential Care Staff: International Perspectives on Professional Identity, Role Perceptions, and Practice Challenges - G22
Theme: Everyday lives – workforce
Facilitators: Sigrid James (Germany), Mary Elizabeth Rauktis (US), Yvonne Smith (US)
Description:
Residential care for children and young people is recognized as a highly complex yet under-valued field of practice, requiring staff to navigate multiple and often competing expectations. Beyond providing daily care and ensuring safety, practitioners are expected to build therapeutic relationships, support family involvement, manage challenging behaviors, collaborate across service systems, and contribute to positive developmental outcomes. These diverse responsibilities raise important questions about how residential care staff understand their professional roles and how organizational, policy, and cultural contexts shape their work. This interactive workshop brings together perspectives from different national contexts to explore the evolving role of residential care practitioners and the challenges they encounter in contemporary practice. Drawing on research, practice experience, and international comparisons, the presenters will examine similarities and differences in role expectations, professional identity, workforce preparation, and the structural conditions that influence practice. Particular attention will be given to how residential care staff balance relational, therapeutic, educational, and care responsibilities while working within increasingly complex service environments. The workshop is designed to encourage dialogue among practitioners, researchers, and policymakers. Through facilitated discussion and collaborative reflection, participants will compare experiences across countries, identify shared challenges (e.g., balancing closeness and professional boundaries, navigating tensions between relationship-based practice and institutional requirements for compliance and surveillance), and consider the implications for workforce development, organizational support, and policy. By bringing together international perspectives, the session aims to foster a deeper understanding of the residential care workforce and to stimulate discussion about how systems can better support staff in delivering high-quality, relationship-based care for children, young people, and their families.
Co-designing Quality with Children, Families and Practitioners - G36
Theme: Co-design
Facilitators: Bob Lieberman (US) and Celeste Walley (US), Matt Wareham, Stuart Harragan, Sarah Paget (England)
Description:
What does it take to design a therapeutic approach that truly reflects what matters to children, young people and families?
Who gets to decide what quality looks like? This engaging workshop brings together two complementary international initiatives that demonstrate how quality is strengthened when those closest to the work become partners in shaping it. Drawing on a statewide co-design initiative in the United States and The Mulberry Bush’s therapeutic practice model in the United Kingdom, presenters will explore how organizations can intentionally design systems that reflect the experiences and priorities of children, families, practitioners, and communities. Interactive activities will encourage participants to reflect on their own organizational contexts and identify opportunities to strengthen collaboration, learning and continuous improvement.
Workshop Session 4
Advancing Cross-National Research in Residential Care: Lessons from International Comparative Collaboration - G22
Theme: Research for international collaborations
Facilitators: Patrick Tyler (US), Sigrid James (Germany)
Description:
Residential care for children and young people is shaped by diverse historical, cultural, policy, and organizational contexts, making meaningful international comparison both essential and challenging. While cross-national research has the potential to advance knowledge, inform policy, and strengthen practice, differences in terminology, service structures, legal frameworks, and data availability often complicate comparative analyses. This interactive workshop presents an innovative approach to international comparative research in residential care through the development and application of a standardized data collection matrix. The matrix was designed to capture key characteristics of residential care systems across countries while allowing sufficient flexibility to reflect national contexts. During the first part of the workshop, the presenters will introduce the rationale, development, and structure of the matrix and share selected findings from participating countries, highlighting both common patterns and important variations. The second part of the workshop will focus on the work of the international research group of the Association for Children’s Residential & Community Services (ACRC) and its contribution to advancing collaborative scholarship in residential care. Drawing on experiences from multinational research initiatives, the presenters will reflect on the opportunities and methodological challenges of conducting comparative research, including issues of conceptual equivalence, data interpretation, and knowledge exchange across diverse systems. Designed for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers, the workshop will emphasize dialogue and collaborative reflection. Participants will discuss lessons learned from international comparative research, identify priorities for future collaboration, and explore how comparative evidence can contribute to strengthening residential care policy, practice, and research across national contexts.
Qualifying Quality: Formulating New Perspectives - Jubilee Lecture Theatre
Theme: Quality standards
Facilitators: Kiaras Gharabaghi (Canada), Tea Torbenfeldt Bengtsson (Denmark)
Description:
In this workshop, the presenters aim to engage with the audience on fundamental and perhaps provocative questions about the emerging quality discourse in residential care and treatment. Without dismissing quality as an important element of moving systems forward, the presenters ask questions such as ‘do we really need a model for quality’ and ‘who benefits from the current discourse on quality’. The goal of the workshop is to ensure that our conversations about quality in residential care and treatment reflect our values and aspirations for young people, their families and communities, and their experiences in the settings. The workshop is informed by the research and professional experiences of the presenters in Europe, particularly Denmark, and in North America, particularly Canada.
International Perspectives on Best Practice Training: Equipping Direct Practice Staff - G36
Theme: Workforce training
Facilitators: Michele Boguslofski and Andrea Kenny (UK) and others
Description:
In this workshop, we will present two international examples of workforce training for staff in residential care. Our focus is on methods and processes found to be highly effective in preparing carers who work directly with children and their families, supporting high-quality care, positive relationships, and improved outcomes. To stimulate discussion and generate new ideas, we will explore the commonalities, differences, objectives, and realities that underpin these approaches to workforce training. Focusing on robust training that equips direct practice staff with the skills, knowledge, and values needed for therapeutic, relationship-based work, we will consider how staff can act as change agents within residential settings. Through a strength-based lens, we will examine key considerations for everyday practice, including the translation of training into direct care, reflective practice, supervision and coaching, and teamwork. By highlighting both opportunities and challenges in implementation, we aim to foster a productive dialogue about the future of workforce training in residential care and its role in strengthening outcomes for children, families, and communities. Beyond discussion, the workshop will summarize key points, explore practical ways to build on and improve current practice, identify immediate takeaways, and build a collaborative that can engage in future sharing and dialogue.
Love in residential care? Exploring what we know about everyday relational practices in therapeutic residential care - G31
Theme: Everyday lives – children and young people
Facilitators: Lynne McPherson and Janise Mitchell (Aus) and Valerie Tulloch (UK)
Description:
While therapeutic residential care (TRC) services aspire to foster safety, healing, and opportunities to flourish, there remains limited understanding of how everyday practices and conditions in care enable them to form authentic relationships. This interactive workshop aims to explore possibilities for children to form authentic, safe and loving relationships in Therapeutic Residential Care. The session will draw on recent research in Australia and the UK, focusing on what children say about the everyday practices that they wanted to see demonstrated whilst living in a children’s home. The workshop will begin with a brief overview of key research findings and country context, before inviting participants to consider an important set of questions. They will share their own views about enablers, constraints and perceived risks associated with practices that are loving, and whether and how those risks might be mitigated. A facilitated reflective practice inquiry will then explore what might be working well in TRC practice and the difference that is being made. Workshop participants will engage with anonymised reflections from young people living in TRC, exploring key findings (presented earlier) on how every day micro interactions communicate respect, value, and love, enabling children to feel seen and recognised. Finally, practices strengthening young people’s connections beyond the residential care setting, to family, culture, and community will be examined. The workshop will close by inviting participants to move from insight to application: what do these findings ask of them in their practice context? Participants will be challenged to think critically about the implications for organisational culture, leadership, and program design. Finally, consideration will be given to what will change for children if we move from compliance-driven approaches to practice that genuinely prioritise their relationships, experiences and wellbeing.
For any questions about the Summit, please contact us at
rescaresummit@sussex.ac.uk
.
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