TRAINING

Charis Youth Center places significant emphasis on staff orientation and training for all program staff. Beginning with the earliest days of employment the staff are assigned to a professional development track for competency-based training in prevention and intervention skills. All training complies with California Community Care Licensing Standards and includes internationally recognized curriculum to promote the highest level of skill among the staff.

Staff training begins with policy and procedure, standard operating procedures in routine systems and safety, basic and therapeutic communication, and relationship skills. As staff progress in tenure and position, completion and/or certification in competency-based training programs is implemented.

These programs include:

The Prepare Curriculum:
Teaching Prosocial Competencies.
Arnold P. Goldstein, Ph.D., Research Press, 1988.

This curriculum includes units for teaching skills in:

Therapeutic Crisis Intervention.
Cornell University, Family Life Development Center, 2000.

This training includes skills for effective prevention of aggressive outbursts by students and safe, effective self-protection and physical intervention skills to use when student behavior becomes dangerous and they are not able to control themselves.
This training is used because the prevention content and skills are consistent with our principles for interaction with our students. The entire curriculum fulfills a California Department of Social Services, Community Care Licensing requirement that this type of training be provided for all program staff. Charis, however, maintains a hands-off policy and uses physical intervention only in the most extreme circumstances. Because many programs express the same approach, it is difficult to determine the extent to which that is true. In the experience of Charis Youth Center, out of approximately 5,840 child-serving days with level 14 students in the past year (November 2001-November 2002), only 5 physical restraints of students were needed in the program.

Life Space Crisis Intervention.
Long, Wood, Fecser, Pro-ed, 2000.

This curriculum is based on the early work of Dr's. Fritz Redl and David Weinman. Recent work by Dr. Nicholas J. Long has developed these practices to a teachable, replicable model of intervention (Long, et.al. 1990 & 2000). Life Space Crisis Intervention (LSCI) is a psycho-educational approach utilizing strategies from several disciplines to address the needs of young people in crisis. LSCI is a cognitive-verbal strategy allowing staff to work with a student in six main areas where their recurring patterns of self-defeating behavior get them in and keep them in trouble at home, school and the community, as well as in the treatment setting.
This counseling/teaching intervention model teaches staff to help students who:

Staff training takes place in two phases based on experience and position in the program. All program staff receives two days of competency-based foundational skills training, which emphasizes de-escalation skills and communication skills. More experienced staff that assumes responsibility for intervening with youth in crisis situations complete five days of competency-based training resulting in certification in the practice of Life Space Crisis Intervention. Participants in this training have the option to attain three semester graduate credits in Psychology or Special Education from Augustana University in Sioux Falls, SD. Those who take the training as graduate credit must complete an additional assignment beyond what is required for certification.