About our Center of Refugee Immigrant Services (CRIS)

CRIS Program

The Children’s Community Programs of CT, Inc. (CCP) is a licensed child placing agency in the State of Connecticut. CCP’s Center of Refugee and Immigrant Services (CRIS) provides stabilization, assessment, education, and transition services in a safe, supportive and nurturing home to children under the age of 18, this includes sibling groups, and pregnant/parenting teens. CCP’s services promote wellbeing and strong connections with families and the community. The CRIS program is time-limited, concluding with discharge to the child’s sponsor. Services are provided by CCP CRIS staff and partner organizations, and includes individual counseling, case management, education services, medical services, and acculturation and adaptation services. The CCP foster parent network is provided by foster parents who volunteer to bring children into their families and give them opportunities for family and community living. The CRIS facility includes classroom space, counseling offices, conference rooms, a kitchen, and a training/all purpose room.

Program goals

The CCP CRIS program recruits, screens, trains, and approves qualified applicants to become foster parents who can provide outstanding care to vulnerable unaccompanied children and adolescents, during their transition to identified sponsors. The program ensures that all children placed in our homes will enjoy a stable and consistent experience of safe, warm, and caring family life offered by skilled and well supported foster parents, until their transition to the identified sponsor.

Services

Specific services include case management, foster family support, referrals for mental health services, 24/7 emergency on-call support, child and family advocacy, and coordination with schools, medical and other service providers.

During the hours of 7am to 5:30pm, Monday-Friday, minors are brought to The CCP CRIS program to receive case management, educational, medical, mental health, recreational and vocational services.

The education center offers similar support in a school-environment, tailoring services to each youth’s abilities and interests, and offering supplemental services like development of job readiness skills and independent living skills training.

Program Highlights

The program utilizes individualized service plans, which focus on the child’s strengths, cultural, language, gender, age, religion, recreational, and life skills needs. Service plans are utilized collaboratively across teams, and will be reviewed with foster parents and sponsors.

The case management team works in collaboration with the clinical team to ensure safe and timely discharges of all children.

CCP CRIS program understands how trauma impacts children and families, therefore, the program utilizes Trauma-Informed-Model of care in our program’s structure, to ensure staff recognizes, understands, and responds effectively to children’s emotional, psychological, physical, and safety needs. The program utilizes de-escalation intervention and positive-behavioral-support interventions, to help minimize any risk of re-traumatization.

Teachers and teaching staff have consistently worked together to create, deliver, and present learning opportunities to all children, that is engaging and age-appropriate by individualizing the learning for each of the students.