YRI Announces New Center for Excellence for Evidence-Based Practice Implementation (CfE) As Part of Child Abuse Prevention Month Launch

YRI’s Center for Excellence Team joins OCFS in wearing blue for Child Abuse Prevention Month

On Friday, April 5, 2024, Youth Research Inc. (YRI) joined the New York Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) to celebrate our shared commitment to supporting child and family wellbeing.

As the nonprofit affiliate to OCFS, YRI provides workforce development and project implementation support to improve equitable services that promote stability and wellbeing for children and families in New York. Relatedly, YRI and OCFS have worked in tandem to launch the Center for Excellence for Evidence-Based Practice Implementation (CfE).

The CfE represents another step in our collective commitment to reimagining child and family services across New York State and will be the hub for providing technical assistance, training, continuous quality improvement, and evaluation beginning with two evidence-based programs in 2024 – Motivational Interviewing (MI) and Brief Strategic Family Therapy (BSFT).

The CfE creates opportunities to do even more, providing additional support for the implementation of evidenced-based practices that will better support an often overburdened child welfare workforce, and engaging local partners with a goal to upstream prevention, lower caseloads, and prioritize keeping families together.

YRI and our Center for Excellence remain committed to driving positive change in child-welfare practices. We look forward to celebrating the transformative impact of this work in the coming months. Transforming the child welfare system will require more innovative partnerships like this one for success. YRI is thankful to our colleagues at OCFS for this opportunity to be part of this important change.  Together we can make a lasting difference in the lives of children and families across New York State.

You can learn more about OCSF’s child abuse prevention initiatives here.