The Residential Care (RC) system is under pressure to address increasingly demanding needs of youths in care. Wide variation in the success of child welfare systems has led to the search for system-level explanations of differential outcomes for youth.
The CIRC project aims to investigate the association between social variables (such as organizational climate, the social images held by the staff and the relationships between educators and youths) and youth outcomes (such as self-representations, behavior, and academic achievement) through a correlational study. The project will evaluate the needs, dilemmas, practices and possible solutions through a qualitative study. Based on an experimental study, it will implement and evaluate an intervention program centered on the organizational climate with staff, the social images, and the quality of the relationships between educators and youths.
The project helps understanding the processes underlying the construction of self-representations, behavior, and academic achievement of youth in RC. This also offers significant implications for practice since it allows for empirically testing process models that provide inputs for designing a needs-led and theory-based program.