Therapeutic residential care: The example of Jo’s

How do you create a family environment for young people in residential out-of-home care? Service Manager, Paula May, talks us through her experience of setting up and managing a therapeutic youth residential care program in South Australia called ‘Jo’s’. She explains how the program was designed, drawing heavily on recommendations from the report of the Child Protection Systems Royal Commission in SA, and how it works to support young people to shift from trauma to transformation.

In this episode you will learn about:

• Creating a sense of family in residential care (05:14)
• Using a self-organising approach to support the youth work team (09:40)
• The importance of staff being able to engage in normal parental responses (12:38)
• Five stages of the therapeutic framework (20:34)

Further information and resources:

Jo’s Therapeutic Youth Residential Care (video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qppfc4ZdeVo&feature=youtu.be