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Administration Training Contract: Tools of the Trade
Child Welfare Training
The Northwest Institute for Children
and Families has a twenty-five year partnership with the Washington
State Children's Administration to develop and deliver state-of-the-art
training to public child welfare practitioners in Washington
State and nationally. The Institute delivers training to line
social workers and supervisors, as well as to managers.
Training for Social Workers
Training for Supervisors and Managers
Training for all Child Welfare Professionals
Training
for Social Workers
Permanency Planning for Older Youth
Most veteran social workers in public
child welfare have worked with children who have experienced
multiple placements and have aged out of care without permanent
families or connections. Safeguarding the stability and connections
of older children and youth in the child welfare system presents
specific challenges and yet, permanent homes and connections
are possible. Permanency planning strategies, tailored to
the needs of older children and youth offers workers the
specific tools they need to insure that no child leaves the
care system without permanent family connections.
This fun, interactive one and a half day
training will provide social workers in state agencies and
in residential settings with a context for permanency planning
for older youth, an opportunity to consider ways to incorporate
the practice into their daily work and the skills needed
to do so successfully.
The training reviews permanency outcomes
for older youth and explores the underlying assumptions that
influence those outcomes. Specific skills based upon the
principles of concurrent planning are taught. Techniques
for addressing permanency issues with youth and their caregivers
will be practiced.
Training objectives include (a) an increased
understanding of the nature of permanency planning for older
youth (b) an increased understanding of the role that professional
belief plays in permanency planning for older youth (c) increased
knowledge in how to locate and engage permanency resources
for youth (d) practice assessing specific permanency options
(e) practice addressing issues of permanence with youth and
caregivers.
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Permanency Planning
from Day One
Permanence as well as safety is
a matter of urgency for every child involved with the child
welfare system. Diligent permanency planning from day one
insures that children will not age out of the system without
permanent family and family connections.
This one day training builds on the principles
of the concurrent planning model to include specific actions
that can be taken throughout the life of a case to protect
the permanence of children in out of home care. Data related
to permanency outcomes is reviewed. Case studies illustrate
how those outcomes are achieved. Specific skills in early
identification of children most at risk of impermanence,
in strengths based engagement, kinship assessment and behaviorally
specific case planning are taught.
Learning objectives include (a) increased
understanding of how permanency planning can be incorporated
into daily practice (b) increased understanding of the
risks and protective factors related to permanence (c)
review of policies and laws related to permanence (d) skill
development in strengths based engagement (e) skill development
in early prognostic assessment (f) increased ability to
utilize kinship care (g) skill development in behaviorally
specific case planning.
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Concurrent
Planning
Concurrent planning is a specific set of
strategies designed to achieve the goal of permanence for children
most at risk of foster care drift. Developed in the 1980’s
by Linda Katz and others, concurrent planning involves early and
consistent attention to permanence and stability throughout the
life of a case.
This one day training reviews the Adoption
and Safe Families Act (ASFA) as well Child and Family Service
Review(CFSR) standards. Concurrent planning principles and
outcomes are taught. Specific skills related to concurrent
planning are practiced using a variety of engaging and interactive
training methods.
Learning objectives include (a) increased
understanding of ASFA and CFSR (b) increased understanding
of the principles of concurrent planning (c) skill development
in strengths based engagement (d) skill development in
early prognostic assessment (e) exploration of concurrent
planning benefits and challenges using case scenarios (f)
practice in full disclosure interviewing (g) increased
knowledge of permanency resources (h) increased understanding
of the connection between visitation and permanence.
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Training
for Supervisors and Managers
Supervising
for Excellence (SFE ) is
a leadership and skill-building seminar delivered to all
new child welfare
supervisors
in Washington State over the course of three months. It
is residential, allowing supervisors to focus on the material
away from busy office interruptions and to form productive
consultation relationships with one another that often
last for years. This year's SFE offers a proven agenda
delivered by accomplished faculty.
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Workload Management
This one day training asks participants to reflect on
the common effects of overwhelming workloads in child welfare and agencies,
presents a framework for understanding and measuring workload in various child
welfare programs, proposes workload standards based on workload studies in
Washington State, recommends guidelines for workload management at the social
worker, unit and office level and advances a framework for bringing program
goals into line with available resources.
Training objectives include an increased
understanding of how to measure and analyze child welfare
workload and an increased repertoire of workload management
strategies at the unit and office levels.
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Leadership
Development in Child Welfare
This 9 day leadership development course is designed
for line staff, supervisions; it is delivered in three 2 ½ day segments,
with an additional 1 ½ days devoted to a ropes course. It is build around
the theme that staff at every organizational level can exercise leadership.
This course includes presentations on bureaucracy,
developing a mission and an organizational culture to support
it, acquiring informal influence in units and offices, collaboration,
cultural competence and the future of child welfare.
Participants are taught the importance
of truth telling, passion, idealism and taking initiative.
The paradoxical lesson that to gain power, i.e. effectiveness,
staff must relinquish power, i.e. control, is stressed.
This leadership development program has been utilized successfully for several
years in two regions in Washington State.
This course has the potential of
dramatically changing the assumptions of promising staff
regarding what is possible in child welfare organizations.
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Training
for all Child Welfare Professionals
Improving Interventions in Chronic
Neglect
This half day, one day or two day training reviews the
knowledge base regarding child neglect and its effects on child development,
provides a typology of neglecting families, sets forth practice guidelines
for child welfare practitioners and discusses lessons learned from neglect
projects in Washington State.
This training advances an epidemiological
theoretical framework for understanding chronically neglecting
families which strongly emphasizes the relationship between
severe and/or long term poverty and parents’ substance
abuse and mental health problems. The training includes ideas
for combating depression and demoralization in chronically
neglecting families.
Learning objectives of the training
include (a) an increased ability to recognize the relationship
between severe or long term poverty and parental impairments
(b) an increased ability to recognize important differences
among neglecting families (c) an increased ability to organize
comprehensive assessments of neglecting families (d) an
increased ability to respond to parents, hopelessness and
helplessness in the engagement, and treatment phases of
intervention.
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Decision to Place
This one day or two day training reviews the knowledge
base regarding child abuse and neglect related placements and placement outcomes,
sets forth guidelines for placement decisions, allows participants to work
together in groups on a variety of case scenarios and then compare group responses
to typical CPS fact patterns, clarifies thinking about the meaning “ risk
of imminent harm”, presents a perspective for understanding the emotional
impacts of placement on children and addresses the differences between initial
placement decisions and reunification decisions.
This training utilizes case scenarios which
have been presented to child welfare staff in Washington
State and other states over many years, and so allows participants
to compare their responses with those of many other CPS staff
in Washington State and around the country.
Training objectives include (a) an
increased knowledge regarding the actual placement practices
of child welfare agencies (b) an increased understanding
of placement guidelines, along with ability to apply these
guidelines to common case scenarios and an increased awareness
of the extent to which participants’ thinking regarding
out of home placement is similar to or different from their
peers.
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Critical
Thinking
This one and a half day training encourages participants
to become more self aware of how they prefer to go about processing information
in decision making contexts, gives participants the opportunity to consider
alternative hypotheses for understanding common child welfare scenarios, provides
an in-depth discussion of bias and ways of combating bias and presents a description
of recognition primed decision making and its emphasis on pattern recognition.
This training provides an overview of evidence
based practice and presents a number of research findings
which have practical applications in child welfare.
Training objectives include the increased
self awareness of participants regarding their decision
making styles and an appreciation of the importance of
pattern recognition in high stakes decision making, along
with an increased ability to critically assess the evidence
base for various programs and interventions.
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Pattern Recognition
This is a half day or one day training regarding pattern
recognition and its importance in assessment and high stakes decision making.
This training will present an overview of recognition primed decision making,
present typologies of physical abuse and chronic neglect and demonstrate how
expert responses to common problems in child welfare can be developed out of
pattern recognition.
Training objectives include an increased
ability to articulate the differences between observation,
pattern recognition and theory building and an increased
ability to develop expert responses to common patterns
in child welfare; and an increased awareness of anomalous
factors in child welfare patterns which require creative
responses.
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Dealing with Stress, Secondary Trauma
and Burnout in Public Child Welfare
This one day training invites child welfare staff to
talk about the emotional challenges of working in public child welfare, listen
to presentations regarding secondary trauma and burnout, including ways of
minimizing their impact, and to develop strategies for protecting staff from
psychological injury.
The importance of unit cohesion, professional
development and staff empowerment are stressed.
Many child welfare staff attending
this training find it therapeutic merely to talk openly
about these issues. However, the goal of the training is
to describe an approach to supervision and social work
in child welfare settings which will protect staff from
psychological injury in challenging work environments.
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Foster
Care Outcomes
This one half day training summarizes current knowledge
regarding foster care outcomes, including length of stay, permanent planning,
kinship care, racial disproportionality, re-entry into care and placement
instability. State and national data are compared. Implication for policy
and practice are discussed.
This training is an opportunity to
reflect on the overall functioning of foster care systems
as described by administrative data. It is also an opportunity
for child welfare staff at all levels of the organization
to talk with one another about the meaning of this information
for policy and practice.
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Reducing
Multiple Placements
This half day or one day training reviews current
knowledge regarding placement disruptions and their relationship to length
of stay in foster care, children’s behavioral problems, re-entry into
care and kinship care. The training describes common patterns of multiple
placements and their implications for child welfare practices. The training
presents strategies for reducing multiple placements and stabilizing children/youth
in placement, and discusses the emotional impact of various types of placement
moves.
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For more information regarding these trainings, contact:
Dee Wilson (wilsod@u.washington.edu) 206-221-4278
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