Abstract: Submission #71

Biosketch Yolande Heyns (BA Child and Family Psychology, BA Soc Sc (Hon), MA Soc Sc, & PhD Soc Sc), is a registered social worker in private practice and an avid researcher. She renders supervision services to local welfare offices and child and youth care centres (CYCCs) while conducting administrative work and fundraising. She also provides mediation services to parents and their children. Her main interest is however empirically based scale development that promotes the overall well-being of children in CYCCs, and therefore she has conducted two research studies (MA & PhD). The product of the first was a protocol to manage children with mental health disorders in CYCCs. The second focuses on children with developmental problems in rural CYCCs. Both are indigenised and responsive to the needs of children in alternative care. Through interdisciplinary research, it advances services to children in CYCCs. Yolande provides CPD-accredited training to staff of CYCCs (especially social workers and child and youth care workers), teachers, and the like to implement these protocols.