CENTER FOR THE HELPING PROFESSIONS LAUNCHES

Nashville, TN-based NonProfit Focused on Improving Systems Through Safety Science and Evidence-Based Approaches

NASHVILLE, Tenn., March 6, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The Center for the Helping Professions (CHP), a nonprofit organization dedicated to working across sectors to advance safety science and evidence-based approaches to systems improvement, announced its launch today. Based in Nashville, TN, CHP is co-founded by president and CEO Michael Cull, PhD, chief operating officer Tiffany Lindsey, EdD, LPC-MHSP, both formerly with the Center for Innovation in Population Health at the University of Kentucky (UKY), and chief analytics officer Elizabeth Riley, PhD, (UKY).

CHP will work with partners across complex, safety-critical systems, such as child welfare and healthcare, to explore the application of safety science to bring about systems change. Using structured methodologies, such as critical incident review, data collection and analysis, collaborative and peer-to-peer learning, technical assistance, research and evaluation, CHP will work to foster and support safe, effective, and reliable helping systems.

"Ensuring the well-being of children, families and communities requires coordinated efforts across the helping professions," noted Dr. Michael Cull. "As an evidence-based practice, safety science offers us a new way of thinking about systems improvement. CHP works with organizations across sectors to create a safe culture that strives to balance individual accountability with system accountability towards the goal of preventing future tragedies. Our team of experts in safety, improvement, and implementation science have extensive experience serving in such roles as mental health crisis counselors, milieu supervisors, educators, paramedics, emergency nurses, psychologists and child protection investigators which is critical for a cross-sector approach to safety."

Among the partners CHP will support is the National Partnership for Child Safety, a member-led quality improvement collaborative of nearly 40 county, state and tribal child welfare agencies. They are a peer-to-peer community that is employing safety science approaches, including critical incident reviews, data sharing and organizational assessments to improve child safety across participating communities.

CHP also works with the National Center for Fatality Review and Prevention to develop promising approaches and guidance on optimizing communication and collaboration across Child Death Review Teams (CDRT) which are tasked with completing Congressionally-mandated child death reviews for child welfare systems and other child-serving agencies.

In addition to a focus on child safety and child death review, CHP works with a range of safety-critical organizations, including community mental health, disability services, residential treatment, law enforcement and public safety.

CHP has also created several open domain tools and resources to share this work beyond their partner organizations. In addition to the production of a number of videos on safety science concepts and strategies, they have also developed the Safe Systems Improvement Tool, for collecting and analyzing data on critical incidents, and the TeamFirst Assessment of Safety Culture (TASC) survey for understanding where organizations are in infusing safety culture across their workforce. These resources were developed in partnership with researchers at Vanderbilt University, Northwestern University, UKY, and are available on request.

"By creating safe practices that activate learning and teamwork, share accountability, and analyze systems factors, we can create more effective helping systems that sustain better outcomes for both professionals and the communities they serve" noted Dr. Tiffany Lindsey. "Multi-system engagements create collaborative environments where agencies can share data, organize their learning and resources, and innovate together. We are so excited to open the doors of our non-profit to do just that."

Media notes: For more information or to request an interview, please contact Jennifer Devlin at 703-966-3241 or [email protected].

About The Center for the Helping Professions
The Center for the Helping Professions (CHP) is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization based in Nashville, Tennessee, which specializes in the application of safety science and the accompanying sciences of improvement and implementation. CHP adapts and applies safety science and evidence-based approaches to enhance safety and address systems improvement across safety-critical sectors such as child welfare. For more information, visit us at https://centerforthehelpingprofessions.org. 

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SOURCE Center for the Helping Professions