This field guide, intended for social workers, discusses strategies for engaging families during visits. It begins by urging social workers to use a solution focused approach and identifies core conditions for developing a relationship with families, including demonstrating genuineness, empathy, respect, and competence. A practice wheel is presented that describes strategies for engaging, teaming, assessing, planning, intervening, and tracking and adjusting. Steps are then discussed for working with resistance and developing a working agreement, and tasks that a worker or support person can do to assist families through each stage of the process of change are also reviewed. Following sections of the guide address: skills for engaging families, including strategies for eliciting solutions, interviewing techniques to promote exploration, and solution-focused questions; the cycle of need and possible need statements; outcome indicators for safety, stability, well-being, and permanency; and safety and stability considerations. Link to Field Guide
Category Archives: CA&N Resources
The Texas Blueprint: Transforming Education Outcomes for Children and Youth in Foster Care.
In 2010, the Supreme Court of Texas issued an Order Establishing the Education Committee of the Permanent Judicial Commission for Children, Youth and Families (Children’s Commission). This order was the Texas response to mandates in the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008. The Education Committee collaborated to create recommendations to improve educational outcomes of children and youth in foster care. The recommendations fell into eight categories:
- Judicial Practices
- Data and Information Sharing
- Multi-Disciplinary Training
- School Readiness
- School Stability and Transitions
- School Experience, Supports, and Advocacy
- Post-Secondary Education
- Future Collaboration
Michigan DHS Report on Families First and Family Reunification Programs
April 16, 2012; Michigan Department of Human Services annual report to the legislature on the Families First and Family Reunification programs effectiveness and costs. Link to DHS Report
YouthThrive
Center for the Study of Social Policy: This multi-year initiative examines ways to support foster youth that advance healthy development and well-being and reduce the impact of negative life experiences.
Youth Thrive has two goals:
- To give child welfare agencies and their partners a way to translate the federal mandate for child well-being into actions that will secure the healthy development of youth in foster care. CSSP has examined the research knowledge-base to identify protective and promotive factors that build healthy development and well-being for youth as they move through adolescence into adulthood. The synthesis of the research and the Youth Thrive Protective and Promotive Factors Framework will be shared with the field, and used to fashion policies, programs and interventions that promote health and well-being. CSSP anticipates creating tools and trainings for practitioners working with at-risk youth, parents, foster parents and relatives caring for youth, group homes and other facilities and child welfare agencies.
- To disseminate this information to parents, caregivers, families and communities so that they will better understand how they – in their respective roles – can prioritize healthy development for young people to grow into successful, productive and caring members of society.
Refugee Portal: Bridging Refugee Youth and Children’s Services (BRYCS)
Refugee Portal: Bridging Refugee Youth and Children’s Services: BRYCS created this portal to ensure that refugees have easy access to multilingual resources. The languages include: Arabic, Burmese, Karen, Nepali, Somali and Spanish. Refugees may click on their language for resources on the topics of family life and parenting, early childhood, the U.S. school system (K-12), children’s books, and health/mental health. English versions of the materials are also available. Link to Portal
Supporting Children of Parents with Co-occurring Mental Illness and Substance Abuse
June 2012, Research To Practice Brief, National Abandoned Infants Assistance Resource Center:
It is well documented in the literature that children growing up in homes headed by a parent with co-occurring mental health and substance abuse disorders are at an increased risk for a multitude of psychosocial complications. These children are commonly exposed to ongoing stressors that can have a cumulative impact on their behavior and development. In a three-year longitudinal study, researchers found that the risk of child behavior problems increased with the number of areas in which the mother reported difficulties. Unfortunately, in families with parental co-occurring disorders, multiple difficulties are commonplace. This brief suggests a number of services and supports for such families. Link to pdf Practice Brief