ABSTRACT
Child and youth care practitioners, scholars, advocates, and administrators from around the globe recognize that the field of child and youth care must derive a new paradigm and consensus vis-a-vis professionalization. At the same time the vexing question of how best to get there remains. Aside from lingering fears that professionalization will imperil the essential humanity of child and youth care practice, legitimate questions remain about how exactly such status could and should be achieved. The chapter describes one path by which such status might be attained, and does so via a data- and theory-based process that culminated in a model of professional child and youth care called the Therapeutic Home Parent (THP) model. It discusses three primary implications of the THP model: professional practice, selection and screening, and education and training.
