Projects

BRS Aftercare

In the second half of 2022, the Center began a contract with ODHS’s Office of Child Welfare to identify opportunities for improvement within the Behavioral Rehabilitation Services (BRS) program—specifically as it pertains to aftercare services. Following an extensive review of existing literature on best practices for aftercare in BRS or BRS-adjacent programs across the country, we conducted a series of interviews with BRS provider staff (ranging from program directors to direct care staff). We then merged this provider feedback with findings pulled from other aftercare efforts to create a set of recommendations for ODHS.

In response to our findings, ODHS plans to include hourly transition service contract language and funding to support strategies above and beyond OAR requirements in the next contract amendment cycle. We hope to continue working with ODHS as they begin the next phase of this work. In the future, we plan to engage BRS children, youth, and families, draft an implementation approach for a revised aftercare model, or create a low-burden self-evaluation tool for providers to assess the efficacy of their own aftercare programs.

Building Community Resilience

The Building Community Resilience (BCR) Collaborative seeks to improve the health of children, families, and communities by fostering engagement between grassroots community services and public and private systems to develop a protective buffer against Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) occurring in Adverse Community Environments (ACEs) – the “Pair of ACEs."

Connecting community organizations (through a church health ministry or trusted food pantry, for example) with larger systems (including those in health care, education, business, law enforcement) can begin to build a durable network to improve community wellbeing. The BCR sites are in the Greater Cincinnati Region of Southwest Ohio and Northern Kentucky, Dallas County, TX, the State of Oregon, Washington, DC-Maryland-Virginia, the State of Washington and Kansas City (MO and KS) and St. Louis, MO.