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This article describes the effect of a province-wide vision of evidence-based and outcome-based services for children and youth and the challenges of implementing evidence-based practice (EBP) and evidence-based treatment (EBT) approaches within group care settings. The paper is based on the results of a survey of group care settings in the province of Ontario, Canada, which was designed to understand the factors affecting the use of EBP and EBT. The critical roles of policy, access to research, and organizational structure as they affect the frontline workforce were explored. The results identified key differences between programs who implemented an evidence-based approach and those who are struggling to do so. Differences in case management practices as well as organizational factors affect the program's ability to use an evidence-based approach. (Contains 1 table and 4 figures.)

This article provides an overview of the history, development, and conceptual framework guiding a national certification initiative for child and youth care workers. Summarized are descriptions of three certification assessment measures (supervisor assessment, situational judgment certification exam, and portfolio assessment), integrated with results from an international pilot validation study. The certification program is the first national effort to identify and assess underlying child and youth work competencies that transcend work setting (community-based to out-of-home care), population characteristics (diagnosed mental health concerns, experiencing child abuse, etc.), and age of the child/youth (early childhood through adolescence). The authors assert, building on a seven-year collaborative effort to establish the certification program, that it is time to transform the child and youth serving workforce crisis into an opportunity to bring together the varied child- and youth-caring fields into a united profession that has a rich knowledge and skill base of international scope. (Contains 2 tables.)

Interactive instructional television was used to deliver employability skills to remote cooperative education students, solving problems with earlier delivery methods. Distance students had relatively the same grades as on-campus students and they noted few disadvantages, related primarily to disconnection/isolation. (SK)

Literature reviews on suicide prevention programs have presented conflicting results on the efficacy of school-based prevention programs. Gatekeeper training and peer helping are both recommended as part of a comprehensive school-based prevention program, yet there is no literary evidence of the systematic evaluation of gatekeeper training for peer helpers. This study evaluated the efficacy of such training with high school peer helpers using a repeated measures design. Significant gains in knowledge about suicide and skills for responding to suicidal peers were evident immediately after training and 3 months later. There was also a significant improvement in positive attitudes toward suicide intervention following training. Although there was no control group, the research offers tentative support for the efficacy of training peer helpers in suicide risk assessment and indicates the importance of additional training for peer helpers.

The special characteristics of terrestrial and coastal marine biotas are the latitudinal gradients of species diversity that induced the development of theoretical ecology. Local and regional patterns of diversity have been studied in detail after the discovery of large diversity in the benthos found in the deep sea. Since the environmental gradients that cause enormous patterns in surface environments cannot influence the deep sea biotas, latitudinal gradients in these biotas were not expected. Gastropods, bivalves and isopods exhibit latitudinal diversity gradients.

The article looks at the implications of life space intervention for caregiving in Canada. According to the authors, life space intervention refers to a framework for working with young people in the spaces where their lives unfold. They also discuss the condition of young people living in foster homes or group care and the importance of acknowledging the priorities, relationships and experiences of young people.

An excerpt from the report "Personalized Service Delivery: A Synthesis of Challenges and Opportunities," by K. Gharabaghi and C. Stuart published in 2012 is presented.

The article discusses dichotomies in the professionalizing of child and youth care. The author is concerned over various perceptions of the field and distinctions between child and youth worker and youth worker. Four examples of dichotomies are provided which include objective/subjective, personal/professional, evidence-based science/reflective contemplation, and community work/clinical work. The author laments that the distinctions do not aid in expanding knowledge about child and youth care.

In this article we explore how child and youth care practitioner's can work with the infusion of technology, known as cyberspace, into our daily lives. Drawing on new thinking about the nature of life-space and life-space intervention, this article explores how cyberspace can be considered as an extension of the life-space of young people and families and as such requires a new set of tools be incorporated into the strategies used in life-space intervention. Research on cyber counselling is reviewed to demonstrate one such tool and the implications of this research are extended to work with cyberspace in the life-space. The ecological model is re-conceptualized to incorporate an explicit consideration of cyberspace requiring a critical re-consideration of ethical dilemmas and ethical codes for practice, an approach which keeps the cybersystem in the purview at all times and forces a re-thinking of the concept of presence as an aspect of relational work with young people and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author explores the history and growth of the Child and Youth Care (CYC) profession and the Child and Youth Care Workers Association of Manitoba. She mentions that a rally staged by the Manitoba Youth Services and CYCWAM on May 3, 2010 aims to raise wages for youth workers in the province. The Residential Child Care Association changed its name to CYCWAM in the early 1980s. The need for CYCWAM to collaborate with employer associations representing CYC practitioners is stressed.