Children grow best when their care is grounded in safety, clarity, and relationships, and when development and future planning are paced to their lived reality.
That is the principle behind GROUND → GROWTH, the model of care we use across our residential and aftercare services in Ireland. It is trauma-informed but non-clinical, evidence-led, and designed for the people doing the actual work: residential care workers, key workers, and team leaders.
What it is, and what it isn't
GROUND → GROWTH is not a therapy model. It is a practical framework that guides everyday practice: the response when a young person is escalating, the shape of a key-working session, the questions raised in supervision. Where specialist clinical or therapeutic supports are required, those continue to be delivered by appropriately qualified practitioners in partnership with our team.
The model applies across our children's residential services (including mainstream care, separated children seeking international protection, and Temporary Protection placements) as well as our aftercare and supported-accommodation services. Our disability services operate under a separate person-centred, rights-based Positive Behaviour Support framework, designed for that population, and are not within the scope of this model.
The five domains
The framework is structured around five connected domains. Movement through them is not linear; a young person, and the team supporting them, may move back and forth depending on what is happening that week.
Ground · the foundations
Grounding. Safety and regulation. Distress is met with containment, not punishment. Limits are communicated calmly and consistently, and consequences (where necessary) are proportionate, explained, and focused on learning and repair. Boundaries are part of safety, never a form of punishment.
Clarity. Orientation and understanding. Routines, decisions and processes are explained in age-appropriate ways. Uncertainty is named honestly rather than glossed over. Rights, advocacy and the complaints process are explained accessibly and revisited over time, not treated as a one-off induction.
Connection. Relationships and belonging. Trust is built through reliability and repair after rupture, not through demands. Cultural identity, family ties and community belonging are actively supported. A trusted adult is part of how a young person learns to raise a worry safely.
Growth · the future
Development. Skills, identity and participation, paced to the young person's strengths and readiness rather than forced to a curriculum or a calendar.
Direction. Outcomes, transition and hope. Leaving-care and aftercare planning is paced to the person; young people are not rushed out of care before they are ready. Where transitions happen at short notice, continuity of relationships is held wherever possible.
What this looks like in practice
- Individual care plans reference the domains most relevant to the person right now, not all five at once.
- Key-working sessions explore grounding, connection, development and future planning, rather than running through a checklist.
- Supervision and reflective practice ask which domain the team is operating in, and whether foundations are sufficiently in place before pushing toward growth.
- Incident reviews look not only at the response in the moment, but at whether grounding, clarity and connection were sufficiently present in the days before escalation.
- Every team member is trained in CPI verbal and safety interventions, used within the model, never as a replacement for relational care.
Aligned with the standards
GROUND → GROWTH provides the overarching framework through which our regulatory and safeguarding obligations are delivered in practice, including the HIQA National Standards for Children's Residential Centres (2018), the Child Care (Standards in Children's Residential Centres) Regulations 1996 (S.I. 397/1996), and Tusla policy frameworks. Evidence of the model is carried through care plans, daily records, keywork documentation, incident reports, reflective supervision and service reviews.
The model also forms the foundation of our Statement of Purpose, our policies and procedures, and our quality-improvement processes, which means it is the thing we are trained in, supervised against, and return to under pressure.
When care is well grounded, growth becomes possible.
