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PROVIDENCE, RI

Family Service of Rhode Island
PO Box 6688
Providence, Rhode Island 02940-6688
401.331.1350

Purpose
To identify children from birth to 18 years of age who are impacted by domestic and/or community violence. To provide crisis intervention, support, and advocacy and to improve access to developmentally appropriate mental health services and case management.

Interventions
Crisis intervention, identification, assessment, and referrals: A crises response worker on the scene identifies families, addresses immediate crisis needs, and initiates follow-up and service referrals after an incident. The Providence Police Go-Team, which has been trained in the Child Development/Community Policing (CD-CP) program, provides crisis intervention 24/7 to children and families. The program, a national model of collaborative alliances among law enforcement, the juvenile justice system, medical and mental health professionals, child welfare agencies, schools, and other community groups, includes cross-training, follow-up home visits, and short and long-term clinic-based treatment interventions held in homes, neighborhoods, and schools.

Case management: The program plans and implements community supports for children and families exposed to violence. Family progress is reviewed and coordinated in weekly interdisciplinary case consultation meetings that include staff from domestic violence shelters, police, youth and family departments, and the Rhode Island family court.

Clinical interventions: The program provides child-parent psychotherapy to children and families over a period of 12 sessions.

Promising or Evidence-Based Practices
Child Development Community Policing (CD-CP) Program: National Traumatic Stress Network. www.nccev.org.

Integrated Family-Centered Case Management: Recommendation of the Council on Accreditation (COA) www.coa.org. An Outcomes-Based Approach to Evaluating Service Coordination Models (2004). Roberts, R. National Early Childhood Training Center. http://www.nectac.org.

Child Parent Psychotherapy: Van Horn, P. and Lieberman, A. (2006). Child-Parent Psychotherapy and the Early Trauma Treatment Network. Collaborating to Treat Infants, Toddlers, and Preschoolers. Children Exposed to Violence. Feerik, M. and Silverman, G. (Eds.) Paul Brooks: Baltimore.