Child Development Institute – Centre for Children Committing Offences

Background

Toronto’s Earlscourt Centre was one of a handful of clinical centres in Canada with a special focus on helping children under 12 at risk of becoming involved in the juvenile justice system. In the year 2000, Earlscourt estimated that it was only able to provide services to one child in six who could benefit from treatment.

In 2004, Earlscourt merged with The Crèche Child and Family Centre which provides child care and a range of early-intervention programs for families and children in five locations across Toronto to become the Child Development Institute.

As a result of the unique programs it has developed and its growing reputation in North America, the Centre has received over 650 inquiries from communities and organizations eager to develop similar initiatives. To be able to respond effectively to these inquiries, Earlscourt decided to establish a Centre for Children Committing Offences (CCCO) as a distinct unit within the organization.

Full Description

CCCO has developed, tested and disseminated a range of programs including SNAP (Stop Now and Plan), which has demonstrated positive impact on children’s behaviour. While a solid evidence base for SNAP’s effectiveness has been developed and the program has received extensive international recognition, its integration into the Canadian system is in the early stages, in part because child welfare agencies are provincially-based.

The Applied Dissemination work, previously supported by the Foundation, resulted in an increase in the number of agencies using SNAP from 8 to 75, laying the groundwork for further expansion and enhancement of SNAP within diverse Canadian communities (including First Nations, the deaf community and a range of cultural and linguistic communities in both urban and rural settings).

This grant will allow CCCO to fully embed SNAP in the core services offered by a range of social service agencies and to make the case for a model of intervention that should be accessible to all at-risk children and their families in Canada.

CCCO’s current goal is to:

• Embed SNAP at each site;
• Improve the effectiveness of its application;
• Build capacity of program delivery to measure and document results.