Building Communities of Care: A Comprehensive Model for Trauma-Informed Youth Capacity Building and Behavior Management in Residential Services

Recent efforts to develop residential treatment models have sought to address the need for trauma-informed principles, procedures, and practices. The goal of these efforts is to meet the need for efficient therapeutic residential care that maximizes positive outcomes and minimizes cost for youth and organizations. The article reviews current trauma-informed approaches for residential care, and introduces Building Communities of Care (BCC), a strength-based model that embeds trauma-informed youth capacity building and behavioral management strategies within and across all facets of residential treatment services. Also presented is an evaluation across two programs of the potential contribution of this model to decreased length of stay, utilization of physical restraints, client and personnel injuries, and worker’s compensation claims. The article concludes by highlighting the implications of the BCC model toward more effective residential staff training, youth intervention, and incident reduction, and by discussing future directions for research on trauma-informed program models.