OUR APPROACH
From Understanding
Risk to Building Resilience
Look at conditions, risk factors, opportunities for earlier intervention.
2. APPROACH
Understand the Pathway
Understanding the Pathway means looking beyond the outcome to understand the experiences, conditions, behaviors, and circumstances that may have contributed to it. A crisis rarely happens because of one isolated event. Illinois C.A.R.E.S.™ examines the factors that can accumulate over time and how they interact across an individual’s life, family, environment, and community.
Understanding the pathway helps us move from simply asking “What happened?” to asking “What happened before this, and where could the pathway have changed?” By identifying the points where risk increased—and where support, resources, or protective factors could have made a difference—we create opportunities to intervene earlier and change the trajectory.
