The Residential Care (RC) system is under pressure to address increasingly demanding needs of youths in care. Wide variation in the success of child welfare systems has led to the search for system-level explanations of differential outcomes for youth.        The CIRC project aims to investigate the association between social variables (such as organizational climate, the social images held by the staff and the relationships between educators and youths) and youth outcomes (such as self-representations, behavior, and academic achievement) through a correlational study. The project will evaluate the needs, dilemmas, practices and possible solutions through a qualitative study. Based on an experimental study, it will implement and evaluate an intervention program centered on the organizational climate with staff, the social images, and the quality of the relationships between educators and youths.        The project helps understanding the processes underlying the construction of self-representations, behavior, and academic achievement of youth in RC. This also offers significant implications for practice since it allows for empirically testing process models that provide inputs for designing a needs-led and theory-based program.

Infant and toddler protection from domestic violence constitutes a priority European public health issue. Domestic violence against this population is rarely prevented or diagnosed before hospitalization, as this population has limited access to other than family social groups. Even in hospitals, this particular form of violence against infants and toddlers is rarely recognized. The present project attempts to increase the effectiveness of EU health services in relation to prevention and early diagnosis of infant and toddler abuse and neglect. For this purpose, a diagnostic protocol tackling peculiarities concerning specifically this age-group, and informed by research-based evidence, will be developed. The diagnostic protocol will be developed in such a way, so that it is applicable to all EU partner countries, and the project's proposal is to be implemented in infant and toddler routine health exams. That is because most of the families in EU countries follow nationally specified health exams program during the first years of their child's life and, thus, they become more easily accessible to health professionals' assessment. In order for this diagnostic protocol to be developed, pre-existing diagnostic protocols in use in EU countries, and relevant research evidence, will be gathered and evaluated; in addition, the diagnostic criteria of DC: 0-3 Abusive Relationship Disorder (Zero to Three, 2005) will be adjusted for use in partner countries' populations and they will be piloted in a sample from the general population. Based on the above preparatory work, the main diagnostic protocol will be built and piloted in all partner countries. As soon as the diagnostic protocol is ready, each National partner will train health professionals working in public child welfare clinics on how to apply the diagnostic protocol in the context of her/his everyday clinical practice with infant, toddlers and their families. Health professionals, who will apply the diagnostic protocol...