In an on-going effort to ensure the safety and promote the well-being of unaccompanied undocumented children in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement / Division of Children’s Services (ORR/DCS), BRYCS first developed a training curriculum in 2008 on “Preventing Child Maltreatment in ORR-Funded Care Provider Programs,” and subsequently trained all ORR/DCS-funded care programs across the U.S. This year, ORR/DCS and BRYCS updated and expanded the original “Tier One” curriculum to respond to recent legislation, such as the Violence Against Women Act, and to ensure that the needs of the most vulnerable children are recognized and addressed. This Tier One training covers professional ethics and boundaries, types of child maltreatment, and responding to, reporting, and preventing child abuse and neglect. The new “Tier Two” curriculum builds on “Tier One” by encouraging participants to apply their acquired knowledge to the complex scenarios often encountered by program staff who care for the children in ORR/DCS care. For each “real life” scenario, discussion centers on professional ethics and boundaries; child safety and maltreatment; who needs to know; and how best to respond at all levels of the organization. “Tier Two” creates an environment where care provider staff are motivated to articulate their current practices, assess gaps or difficulties, and then develop, implement and monitor practice improvements. The curriculum, “Preventing Child Maltreatment in ORR-Funded Care Provider Programs,” was created and updated by a leading expert in the field of child abuse and culture, Dr. Lisa Aronson Fontes, together with BRYCS Director, Lyn Morland.
