The National Therapeutic Residential Care Alliance (NTRCA) is the national body for residential care providers for children and young people.
NTRCA provides advocacy, research, workforce development and cross-jurisdiction engagement about the quality of care offered to children and young people in residential care.
The role of the NTRCA is to build capacity through research, evidence, and innovation to influence change.
NTRCA includes service providers from Australian jurisdictions, researchers and individuals committed to quality residential care.
The Alliance understands what makes a viable and valued therapeutic residential care model, what works and what doesn’t work and what the standards should be applied.
Members of the Alliance have individually published works and implemented successful programs for their institutions, organisations and in their jurisdictions. Given the breadth of knowledge, practice wisdom, passion and experience within the Alliance the next phase of development will be to advance therapeutic residential care in Australia through a research agenda and dissemination of practice related resources.
History
NTRCA began in 2012 when a group of colleagues from various states of Australia decided to share their knowledge about best practices in the area of therapeutic residential care.
Foundational reference group members included
- Shelley Wall ( Mercy Community Services, Qld now InfinityCommunity Services)
- Bruce Moore (Mercy Community Services, Qld);
- Annaley Clarke ( Churches of Christ Care Pathways) now Infinity Community Services
- Kate Martin (Churches of Christ Care Pathways, Qld)
- Greg Wall (Churches of Christ Care Pathways, Qld) now Anglicare;
- Laurel Downey (Private Practitioner, Qld);
- Gerard Jones (MacKillop Family Services, Vic);
- Glenys Bristow & Peter Mulholland (WestCare, Vic)