This curriculum on legal guardianship created by the permanency planning process can be used in whole or in part. It offers an overview of legal guardianship, including its history, role in the implementation of permanency planning, and some of the issues surrounding its use. In addition, it shares data collected from a focus group of California child welfare workers that candidly share the ways day-to-day practice differs from stated policy and discuss their views of how and why guardianship operates in the child welfare arena. A survey of county child welfare staff covers transracial placements, emancipation outcomes, and the details of the process in which the decision to recommend guardianship is made. (118 pages)Simmons, B., & Barth, R. P. (1995).

This curriculum addresses legislative, policy, and political analysis for child welfare issues; analysis of the impact of funding sources; content of legislation; policy decision-making processes; development of plans for advocating for legislation that will help people who receive child welfare services; strategies for social action; lobbying; political campaigning; and identifying opportunities for intervention. It includes material on federal and state child welfare policies and funding mechanisms with practice-related content, a list of websites that can be used to gather information on legislation, policy-making, and electoral campaigns, and class discussion topics and assignments. (194 pages)Hardina, D. (1997)

This booklet contains the materials for the Level of Care Matrix Training for Trainers dated 9-6-17.

A new rate structure for Home-Based Foster Care (HBFC) was necessitated with the passage of the Continuum of Care Reform (CCR). In response, a Level of Care (LOC) Protocol has been developed for use by county child welfare and probation placement workers. A LOC matrix using five domains (Physical, Behavioral/Emotional, Health, Educational and Permanency/Family Services Domain), separately scored, and designed to promote best practices in meeting the individual needs of children/youth in the foster care system.

This resource provides access to the Northern California Training Academy's extensive list of literature reviews related to child welfare practice.

This is the current revision of the CalSWEC MSW Curriculum Competencies (10 pages).

Keynote presentations, workshop materials, and other helpful resources from the 2020 Partnerships for Well-Being Institute hosted by Human Services at UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education. This includes content from both the June 3 Virtual Mini-Institute and the in-person institute currently scheduled for Dec. 8-10 in Garden Grove, CA.

Research over the past decade has documented a strong relationship between substance abuse and problems of child abuse and neglect. Although many data collection systems do not gather accurate data on substance abuse and child welfare, most studies in the U.S. suggest parental substance abuse is a factor in one third to two-thirds of child involvement in the child welfare system. Parental substance abuse appears to be strongly associated with higher rates of physical abuse or neglect among families in community samples, higher rates of substantiated child maltreatment in cases referred into child welfare, higher rates of out-of-home placements, re-reports of abuse, and reentry into foster care. This study examined factors that help and hinder the process of collaboration based on in-depth interviews with respondents from substance abuse and child welfare fields working in five California counties with established formal collaborative policies and programs. This curriculum, which is grounded in the findings from the study, provides highlights of research and experiential activities in four primary areas that may be used independently or in combination: (a) overview of research on cross-systems collaboration, (b) promising models and elements for collaborative practice, (c) factors that help and hinder collaboration, and (d) facilitating communication and dealing with confidentiality issues across systems. (161 pages)Drabble, L., Osterling, K. L., Tweed, M., & Pearce, C. A. (2008).

The PowerPoint was used for the Level of Care Matrix from the Training for Trainers held in 2017. This PowerPoint also includes trainer’s notes for those individuals to pass along the training content and train others.

A new rate structure for Home-Based Foster Care (HBFC) was necessitated with the passage of the Continuum of Care Reform (CCR). In response, a Level of Care (LOC) Protocol has been developed for use by county child welfare and probation placement workers. A LOC matrix using five domains (Physical, Behavioral/Emotional, Health, Educational and Permanency/Family Services Domain), separately scored, and designed to promote best practices in meeting the individual needs of children/youth in the foster care system.

Prudent Parent Standard For Supervisors and Managers (2006).
The material in this module was written by Irene Becker, LCSW for CalSWEC.

This brief training resource is designed to share vital information about the Reasonable and Prudent Parent Standard to everyone affected by the changes in the law. It is designed to last about one hour, so that it may be provided during a regular meeting.

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.

This resource provides access to each edition of the Northern California Training Academy's child welfare practice journal Reaching Out.

This resource provides access to the materials for the Recognizing Drug Abuse in the Home (and Cannabis follow-up) course designed for social workers in Northern California.

This page provides access to recorded webinars and materials from the live webinar sessions.

This curriculum offers an empirically based instruction tool for child welfare social workers or other related practitioners on family reunification services: the historical groundings and legal frameworks; the types of services that are offered to parents; factors associated with parents’ use of services; and information on the effectiveness of services. The curriculum blends a literature review of current knowledge with a study on family reunification services, with the intent to provide contextual information to aid social workers in the development of appropriate and responsible case plans for parents receiving reunification services in the child welfare system. (158 pages) Vugia, H., Osterling, K. L., D'Andrade, A. (2009).

A new rate structure for Home-Based Foster Care (HBFC) was necessitated with the passage of the Continuum of Care Reform (CCR). In response, a Level of Care (LOC) Protocol has been developed for use by county child welfare and probation placement workers. A LOC matrix using five domains (Physical, Behavioral/Emotional, Health, Educational and Permanency/Family Services Domain), separately scored, and designed to promote best practices in meeting the individual needs of children/youth in the foster care system.

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).

This curriculum is intended to help child welfare workers, administrators, and policy-makers increase the job retention of public child welfare caseworkers. California’s statewide shortage of social workers is expected worsen, and the field of public child welfare is facing its own acute shortage of social work personnel. More important, high turnover rates in child welfare agencies are a major obstacle to timely investigations, compromising the ability of agencies to protect children. The retention of public child welfare workers is an immediate pressing professional and practical concern, and this curriculum points directly to specific solutions to the problem. (58 pages)Weaver, D., Chang, J., & Gil de Gibaja, M. (2006).

A new rate structure for Home-Based Foster Care (HBFC) was necessitated with the passage of the Continuum of Care Reform (CCR). In response, a Level of Care (LOC) Protocol has been developed for use by county child welfare and probation placement workers. A LOC matrix using five domains (Physical, Behavioral/Emotional, Health, Educational and Permanency/Family Services Domain), separately scored, and designed to promote best practices in meeting the individual needs of children/youth in the foster care system.