This resource provides access to the Northern California Training Academy's extensive list of published guides, tips and tools for child welfare practice improvement.
Material Type: Interactive, Primary Source, Reading
Child welfare is a unique field of social work practice that requires the use of special interdisciplinary skills with attorneys, judges, and other member of the legal system. The skillful application of these interdisciplinary skills is extraordinarily difficult. Fundamental differences between the value base, knowledge, and training of social workers and attorneys assure that the two professions will forever have an uneasy relationship. Nevertheless, the current and future direction of child welfare service delivery demands that this uneasy relationship continue and be improved. Historically, social workers coming into the profession are unprepared for interactions with the Juvenile Court. Graduate level university curriculum is generally silent on how to achieve positive client outcomes while working within the legal system. As a result, most new child welfare workers experience anxiety, fear, and frustration when confronted by the court. Without information on how to achieve positive client outcomes through the court process, social workers generally believe it is impossible to achieve positive outcomes in that setting. Interviews with social workers who have left child welfare to accept other social work positions regularly cite their frustration and discomfort with court-related interactions as a primary catalyst for their decision to leave this area of practice. This curriculum module, designed with that in mind, is intended for use with graduate students interested in child welfare practice and newly employed or inexperienced child welfare caseworkers.
Material Type: Reading
This resource provides access to the Resource Family Approval Training materials for participants in Northern California. To learn more about the Northern California Training Academy, please visit humanservices.ucdavis.edu/academy.
Material Type: Module
This item contains resources relating to the intersection of child welfare and substance abuse services. It includes: a draft outline trainers may use to blend components of sample training curricula; sample curricula on adult substance abuse and on alcohol and other drugs in the practice of child welfare; supplemental training resources including experiential exercises, sample case studies and training handouts; and a bibliography and copies of key articles from research and practice literature. In addition, two brief reference booklets--one on resources for training child welfare staff about substance abuse and one on elements of effective alcohol and drug training for child welfare professionals--are included. (260 pages) Louisell, M., & Drabble, L. (1997).
Material Type: Module
Basic Interviewing for Social Workers FIRST CWS INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW: CRAIG PRICE Possible Physical Abuse & Witnessing Family Violence Referral, 7 year old male Length 10:26 Learning Objectives: • Demonstrate developmental language comprehension check by SW prior to interview; • Demonstrate checking the child’s suggestibility; • Demonstrate engagement and rapport building; • Demonstrate infusing trauma-informed practice points into the interview process; • Demonstrate gathering information about trauma specific issues which may exist with this child, family, or environment.
Material Type: Activity/Lab, Case Study, Homework/Assignment
This activity can be completed indpendently by a learner and submitted to an instructor or another classmate upon completion. In the activity, a learner views a video vignette showing an investigative interview with the biological mother of a child who has been abused by the Mother's boyfriend. Following the video, learners are asked to complete a case notes template, recording a couple paragraphs of their own notes. Learners are asked to also submit an additional self-reflection paragraph explaining what decisions the learner made regarding what was and was not included in their notes and why. Constructive feedback can be offered to help improve learners' use of fact and evidence or to edit for conciseness as well.
Material Type: Module
This thirty minute presentation serves as a preview/orientation to the Northern California Training Academy's in-person training: Advanced Analytics for Child Welfare Administration. To learn more about the Academy and upcoming courses, please visit humanservices.ucdavis.edu/Academy
Material Type: Lecture
This is the current revision of the CalSWEC MSW Curriculum Competencies (10 pages).
Material Type: Module
This curriculum, which may be used in whole or in part, offers an overview of foster care, background on the characteristics of kin and non-kin foster parents, and trends in foster care. Special emphasis is placed on foster care recruitment, training, and retention efforts as well as the foster care payment rate structure. A comprehensive look at the elements that comprise quality of care in kinship and non-related foster homes is included. The curriculum highlights the philosophical reasons for providing quality care, the history and philosophy of kinship care, a legal history and brief policy analysis of kinship care, and domains of quality. Practice tips for child welfare workers and administrators are included, as well as a chapter where kin and non-kin foster parents address their relationship with the child welfare system and recent child welfare policies affecting foster parents and kinship caregivers. (332 pages)Berrick, J. D., Needell, B., Shlonsky, A., Simmel, C., & Pedrucci, C. (1998).
Material Type: Module
This curriculum is designed to educate social workers about the experiences and needs of families involved with both public welfare and child welfare services so that they can provide high-quality case management services within a post-welfare reform environment. Based on research from a longitudinal, ethnographic study of families living in an urban environment, the curriculum includes: a review of child welfare outcomes in the welfare reform era; a description of welfare reform as implemented in one county, including examples from the client's perspective of managing within a welfare-to-work environment; a cost of living analysis of life on welfare; a set of case examples illustrating pathways from welfare to child welfare, with special attention to aspects of welfare reform which may play a role in child welfare outcomes; and a discussion of how to apply qualitative research methods toward improving child welfare practice, as well as an explanation of the research methods used for the study. (187 pages)Frame, L., Berrick, J. D., Sogar, C., Berzin, S. C., & Pearlman, J. (2001).
Material Type: Module
This curriculum focuses on child maltreatment issues and effective practice strategies among immigrant Asian families. Specifically, it elucidates demographic and behavioral characteristics of child abuse victims and perpetrators in four major immigrant Asian communities (Cambodian, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese), factors contributing to the selection of two types of placement (in-home and out-of-home) by child protective services workers, and effective child welfare practice with immigrant Asian families. (106 pages)Rhee, S., Chang, J. (2006).
Material Type: Module
The three case studies written for this project reflect training needs in crucial parts of the child welfare system. They may be used individually or together, and each includes an introduction that highlights the area of child welfare practice that governs the situation, and a variety of classroom exercises. An effort was made to be ethnically sensitive by emphasizing language and cultural diversity differences in family lifestyles as expressed in parenting and disciplinary styles and varying cultural norms and values. The authors strongly recommend the use of collaborative teaching with guest speakers from local departments of Social Service, substance abuse programs, etc., to supplement the case studies. (93 pages)Brewer, L. K., Roditti, M., & Marcus, A. (1996).
Material Type: Module
This module offers classroom instruction with the opportunity for students to observe child welfare workers, judges and referees, and attorneys during actual court proceedings. It provides approximately six hours of classroom content and addresses competencies in ethnic sensitive and multicultural practice, core child welfare skills, social work skills and methods, and workplace management. The curriculum provides a history of the system; cultural insights; background on the differing roles of professionals in the juvenile court setting; a glossary of court terms; and guidelines for proving maltreatment, and for providing effective testimony. (50 pages)Foster, D., & Woods, B. (1995).
Material Type: Module
This is an update of the 2001 curriculum: Frame, L., Berrick, J. D., Sogar, C., Berzin, S. C., & Pearlman, J. CalWORKS and Child Welfare: Case Management for Public Child Welfare Workers. This newly revised curriculum is designed to help students understand the relationship between family economic well-being and parenting and to raise students’ awareness of the important role poverty can play in interfering with parents’ best efforts to raise their children well. Under extreme circumstances, family poverty can place children at significant risk – these are the families who may come to the attention of child welfare agencies. (215 pages)Berrick, J. D., Helalian, H. S., Frame, L., Fabella, D., Lee, K., & Karpilow, K. (2010).
Material Type: Module
This module compares the relative effectiveness of court-mandated versus voluntary service plans in preventing child maltreatment recidivism and analyzes family characteristics that influence how families are recommended for court-mandated services. Results showed that the type of plan does not make a difference in case outcome; similar rates of recidivism were noted between both types of plans after the cases closed. Also, while children were more likely to remain in the home in families that received voluntary plans when other factors were controlled, the voluntary plan advantage disappeared. (145 pages) Jones, L. (2000).
Material Type: Module
This curriculum combines systematic risk assessment (developed to address inconsistency and randomness in existing assessment tools and used to both identify factors which truly endanger children and illuminate strengths that may be build upon to ameliorate risk and preserve the family) with ethnographic interviewing (developed in response to a growing awareness of the importance of cultural differences in the helping process and the right of clients to receive culturally appropriate services). The combination of the two conceptual frameworks which helps clarify risks and strengths enables case plans and interventions to be more closely matched to what families are able and willing to do. (145 pages)Walker, P., & Tabbert, W. (1997).
Material Type: Module
This multi-component project studied the impact of the implementation of the Child Welfare Services/Case Management System (CWS/CMS) on child welfare practice by examining the casework practices affected by computerization, measuring the extent to which these practices were affected by computerization, and identifying organizational and individual factors that influenced the effect of computerization on these practices. Findings showed that the implementation of CWS/CMS did not lead to drastic changes in the ways in which CWSs carried out their daily work; time spent with clients was unchanged. However, the study demonstrated that CWS/CMS led to modest but crucial changes in how workers spent their time on the job, affected the quantity and quality of relationship with coworkers, and changed some workers' attitudes toward their agency and job. (Research Report: 135 pages; Curriculum: 154 pages; Training Academy Curriculum: 111 pages)Weaver, D., Furman, W., Moses, T., Linsdey, D., & Cherin, D. (1999).
Material Type: Module
This project assesses a sample of California county programs for preparing foster teenagers to live independently. Counties were selected to represent statewide variability and represent northern and southern regions as well as urban and rural areas. Chapters address: the organizational structure of each program including the agencies providing ILP services, agency staffing, coordination mechanisms, foster care supervision, and community involvement; a description of program participants including characteristics of the youth, diversity, readiness for the program, barriers to participation, foster care provider issues, foster parent training, and the relationship of birth parents to the county agency and the youth; a description of program processes including identification of eligible youth, referral, outreach, assessment, out-of-county placement, monitoring and follow-up; and an overview of program content and services including classes, activities, individual services, housing issues, and aftercare support. (186 pages)Giovannoni, J., Chaneske, E., & Furman, W. (1996).
Material Type: Module
This curriculum explores the experiences and challenges of transracial adoptive families with the goal of improving the quality of services and supports provided to them. In addition, there is a growing subset of transracial adoptive families who choose to maintain contact with their child's birth family. Very little information exists to help these families or their child welfare workers understand the bumpy terrain of openness. This curriculum fills some of the many gaps in knowledge and practice. It includes summaries of transracial adoption literature, a theoretical discussion on normative development in transracial adoptive families, practice-oriented information including discussion questions and exercises, case vignettes, worker guidance, a self-assessment tool, and findings from the in-depth qualitative study of 12 transracial adoptive families in California conducted as part of this project. Findings themes include: the complicated factors involved in choosing transracial adoption; how the children and youth understand the meaning of their adoption; issues around the choice to maintain contact with the adopted child's birth family, the role of the contact, and the vulnerability of contact arrangements; the role of race in family life and development, negotiating different cultural worlds, and developmental changes; and the role of services and supports prior to and following adoption. (216 pages)Frasch, K., Brooks, D., Reich, J., & Wind, L. (2004).
Material Type: Module
