FAQs

In 1979 with a grant from the National Center of Child Abuse and Neglect (NCCAN) staff of the Family Life Development Center (FLDC) at Cornell University undertook a study of child abuse and neglect in New York State group care institutions. The purpose of this study was to assess the nature and extent of child abuse and neglect when it occurs in the institutional setting, and to identify those factors associated with its incidence. Factors associated with the incidence of abuse and neglect included the inappropriate use of discipline, isolation and restraint, and poor management practices. FLDC staff spent many months researching other crisis intervention curricula, meeting with child care experts, and visiting child care agencies in order to develop a comprehensive training program that addressed the issues outlined in the research.

TCI training was developed and pilot-tested at approximately eight facilities from the study sample of sixteen. Concurrently, the entire sample was involved in the testing of a model response system in reporting and investigating child abuse. From 1981 to 1982, child abuse reports (not instances of abuse) in those facilities that had pilot-tested the Cornell curriculum decreased by forty percent. In those sample facilities, which were not exposed to the new training materials, reporting child abuse increased by more than two hundred percent.

(Note: By virtue of being in the sample, all of these agencies were much more likely to be sensitive to reporting issues and were, therefore, more likely to make a report.)