Core Programs and Services

1. Core Programs and Services

2. Services Offered by JPA Prevention & Intervention Clinical Treatment and Counseling Consultation Advocacy Research and Publication Professional Education and Technical Assistance

3. Prevention & Intervention • Program helps highly-stressed families as an important resource for quality preventive guidance in all areas of parenting • If parents are emotionally and practically inundated, they are unable to develop secure and strong attachment relationships with their infants and toddlers • This program addresses unmet relational needs of parents in helping them negotiate the emotional and concrete needs of their children Important program components include: • Highly-individualized and in-depth counseling with high-risk families and their young children (at least one of whom is birth to 5 years old) • Discussion groups for families of infants and toddlers, for parents to explore both the child’s and their own development while children enjoy the stimulating social environment. • “Get-Together” Thursday afternoon drop-in group (at the local YMCA)

4. Prevention & Intervention(con’t) Goals of the Program: • Enhance the parent-child relationship (the medium within which children learn and develop) • Meet other parents of young children and share thoughts and ideas • Better understand a child’s behavior and developmental stage • Become more comfortable with the challenging aspects of parenting • Provide the child with opportunities to develop important socialization skills

5. Clinical Treatment and Counseling • JPA provides highly sensitive, individualized, in-depth, and long-term treatment to disadvantaged families and young children • Many of these families are “hard to reach” and therefore will not receive assistance just anywhere • Services are provided to families, couples, individuals, and children • The end goal is to optimize the safety, emotional well being, growth and development of children and their parents In fiscal year 2004, JPA served1,386 parents and children including: • 37% African-American • 26% Hispanic • 25% Caucasian • 8% biracial • 1% Native American • 58% were female; 42% male A total of 20,568 individuals were indirectly served through consultation and training to community agencies, hospitals, schools, daycare centers, and early childhood programs located in metropolitan Chicago/Cook County.

6. Consultation • Program was created based on the following assumptions • Many small organizations serving children and families do not have the internal resources to begin defining, collecting, analyzing and using data for the benefit of their clients • To the extent that we can assist agencies in defining what they are trying to accomplish as outcomes with the families they work with we will assist them in improving services to those families • As a secondary outcome of our consultation, smaller agencies should become more competitive in raising money from foundations when they can demonstrate that they measure outcomes and use these measures to improve their services • RTI provides consultation to non-profit agencies in the use of outcome measures, program evaluation and implementing the process of continuous quality improvement. • We use an internally driven process that looks at the success of the agency’s program(s) in fulfilling both its mission and serving its target population All eligible organizations must be based in Cook County with an annual budget of less than $1.5 million, and offer services to high-risk families and their children with a focus on aspects of child welfare

7. Advocacy • As an extension of our direct work with families and children, JPA seeks to disseminate what we have learned in hopes of benefiting others • All of JPA’s efforts, including advocacy, are a means toward the end of ensuring the safety and well being of children and families Some examples of JPA’s advocacy efforts include: • Speaking with civic and social groups about the needs of abused and neglected children and their families • Providing reporters with background information to help educate them on the challenges involved in making clinical, legal, economic and social decisions about how to best address the problems of child abuse and neglect in general • Serving as expert witnesses in federal court cases which are likely to result in policies that directly relate to abused and neglected children • Filing “friend of the court” briefs (Amicus Curie) in state or federal Supreme Courts on issues related to child safety and security • Providing consultation to other public and private social service agencies on how to improve outcomes for children and families JPA does not engage in political advocacy such as lobbying.

8. Research and Publication • JPA researches the most effective means of serving children and families • Staff serve on editorial boards of professional journals, as readers for public and private grant-making organization, as adjunct faculty at local universities • Main research done through JPA is with the Capella Project:: • In 15th year of a national, twenty-year longitudinal study through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services • Seeks to identify risk and protective factors that will help explain why some children are resilient enough to survive abuse and grow into productive adults • Looks at both healthy and unhealthy development by seeing how child, parent, family, neighborhood and cultural factors interact and affect the outcome for a child • Will lead to the development and intervention of intervention protocols • Other sites include: the University of North Carolina, the University of Maryland, San Diego State University, and the State of Washington Office of Children's Administration Research

9. Professional Education and Technical Assistance • Provide single session and series trainings to clinical practitioners and to child care providers in identifying high risk families • Delivered specialized training for the courts, judges and administrative staff, as well as other institutions with regard to appropriate expectations for high risk families • Clinical staff provide professional education to staff of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) via six monthly Grand Rounds presentations held throughout Illinois: • Consultations are accomplished through clinical case discussions of current families in treatment • Each presentation has an average of 25 to 30 participants, with a total of 150 to 180 case managers, supervisors, managers, regional directors in attendance each month • JPA is licensed sponsor of continuing education for social workers, so education credits are earned by participating in these sessions

10. New Initiatives • Family Visitation Project • Non Organic Failure to Thrive Project • Infant Toddler Permanency Protocol • Collaboration with Chicago Children’s Advocacy Center to help them create a mental health program at their agency • Collaboration with Chicago Charter Schools to train teachers in identifying children at risk of abuse/neglect and report to DCFS

11. Single Overriding Communications Objective SOCO Using highly trained professionals, JPA ensures the safety and emotional security of vulnerable children; influences public policy through research and education; and brings hope to families