Durham, Highland Shores and Kawartha-Haliburton Children’s Aid Societies have enjoyed a long history of collaboration. The Therapeutic Family Care Program was one innovation arising out of a successful interagency approach to service delivery.
In the mid 1980’s the Tri-Agency Co-ordination Project, a Ministry funded experiment in service collaboration, sponsored as one of its committees a group home task force, whose task it was to assess the group home utilization patterns of the three Societies. That committee published its findings in the OACAS Journal in September of 1989. Highlighted concerns were out of community placements and a lack of treatment focus in group care services.
A task force was appointed to look at alternatives, and the treatment foster care model was selected as a viable option. A grant proposal was funded, beginning a two year pilot project. The program began in October of 1989, accepting its first placement in Spring of 1990.
As part of the pilot phase, active research was conducted by Program staff in collaboration with Queen’s University, and by the Ministry of Community and Social Services. Research findings were;
The research was completed in Spring of 1992. Results were published in the OACAS Journal, the OFTA Networker, the International Journal of Family Care , and reviewed in Child Welfare. That spring the Program was made a permanent part of services for the three Societies.
The Therapeutic Family Care Program for the Children’s Aid Societies of Durham, Highland Shores and Kawartha-Haliburton has become an important model for experiments in foster care and treatment foster care.