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
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 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).
Material Type: Module
The following training videos are dedicated to helping child welfare workers learn practical skills to cope with the emotional tolls of their very important work. Throughout this series, child welfare workers will learn about the dynamics of secondary traumatic stress, self-care strategies, and a framework for coping with secondary trauma.
Material Type: Lecture, Reading
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
This empirically based curriculum addresses a number of issues related to disparity and disproportionality experienced by African American families involved with child welfare. It is well documented that for decades African American children have been overrepresented in child welfare throughout this country. Yet little is known about what strategies might be implemented in order to reverse this phenomenon. This curriculum is based on findings from a Community-Based Participatory Research Project that brought together African American community leaders and university faculty to examine both the historical evolution and prominent features of a cultural broker approach to promote engagement and partnership with the African American community and the county child welfare agency. This curriculum provides research highlights, historical perspectives, conceptual frameworks, approaches for community engagement, tools and experiential opportunities to strengthen social worker understanding, and knowledge and skills regarding issues related to disproportionality and disparity experienced by African American families in child welfare. It addresses five areas: the history of cultural racism and oppression in child welfare, the prevalence of racial disparities and disproportionality in child welfare, the role of community partnership and collaboration with African American families in child welfare service delivery, the cultural broker approach to community engagement in child welfare practice, and key considerations for improved child welfare partnerships with African American communities. (108 pages) Siegel, D., Jackson, M., Montana, S., & Rondero Hernandez, V. (2011).
Material Type: Module
The goal of this exercise is to have a learner watch an investigative interview, record their own case notes and then practice using those notes to complete the allegation conclusion and assessment sections of an investigation narrative. To achieve this, a video of an investigative interview is taken from a vignette and a partially completed investigation narrative template is provided.
Material Type: Module
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 curriculum consists of five modules in PowerPoint format designed to be used by instructors in class sessions or assigned to students as web-based independent learning. Instructors may use and revise the presentations for their needs. Each module contains slides with narrative information and links to additional readings and relevant websites and will take 1-2 hours for students to complete. Modules typically include factual or reflection questions. Module I informs students about the history and current status of the issue of overrepresentation of African Americans in child welfare. Module II centers on theories to explain overrepresentation and explains the background, methods, results, and recommendations from a recent CalSWEC-funded study on worker factors in overrepresentation. Module III focuses on African American family strengths, values, and norms. It includes an important reading on strengths-based practice with African American families, links to websites that are African American-centered, and ends with linking students to the Harvard University site to take the Implicit Associations Test. Module IV focuses on cultural competency and antiracism theory and reflective exercises. Module V contains abbreviated material from each of the four preceding modules. Smith, L. A., & Shon, H. (2010).
Material Type: Module
