The goal of The Children’s Shelter Hope, Healing, and Resiliency Project is to help children and families heal from trauma by providing trauma-informed, evidence-based mental health services to children who are in or at risk of entering the child welfare system and their adult caregivers. The Project will provide direct services over five years to 1,300 people who live in five counties within the San Antonio, TX metropolitan area.
The Hope, Healing, and Resiliency Project will serve four populations of focus: 1) children and youth ages 0 – 23 who are in the child welfare system and have experienced trauma; 2) family members or caregivers of children who are in the child welfare system and who are identified as needing trauma-informed services in order to support the well-being of children in their care; 3) children ages 0 – 18 who are at risk of entering the child welfare system and who have experienced trauma; and 4) adult family members or caregivers of children who are at risk of entering the child welfare system and who are identified as needing trauma-informed services in order to support the children in their care, and reduce the likelihood that they will enter the child welfare system. All members of these populations who reside in the five counties in the geographic catchment area (Bexar, Comal, Guadalupe, Atascosa, and Medina) will be offered the opportunity to be assessed for their mental health service needs, to determine if the direct services that will be offered through the Project have the potential for improving their well-being. If the assessments indicate that a child or family member might benefit from the services available through the project, project staff members, including therapists trained in the delivery of mental health services, will develop initial treatment/service plans for each participant. Services and treatment plans will incorporate special needs of subpopulations, including children who are African American, Hispanic, and LGBTQ. The evidence-based, trauma-informed services that staff will be trained to provide include: Trust-Based Relational Intervention®, Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Parent-Child Interactive Therapy, and Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.
Project goals include increasing the capacity to provide trauma-informed care services to children and families in the geographic catchment area by hiring new staff members and ensuring they are trained in the use of relevant assessments and in the delivery of trauma-informed services that will benefit each individual participant. Measurable objectives for unduplicated individuals served are: Year 1: 175, Year 2: 225, Year 3: 300, Year 4: 300, Year 5: 300, for a total of 1,300 individuals over the five years of the project. Measurable objectives for outcomes include achieving improvements in functioning over the course of treatment for 80% of children and adults served. The Project incorporates quality data collection, continuous quality improvement processes, and comprehensive periodic reports and evaluations.
