Skill Enhancement

Beyond mandatory trainings, these courses offer you an opportunity to build skills in specific areas, either based on your interests or your role. They are available in a variety of modalities, so you can take something that’s on a flexible schedule or offers a chance to dialogue with peers.

For information specifically about our trainings that are culturally relevant, please visit our Inclusive Practice page.

Introductions

This two-part course takes participants through the contracts process and the importance of monitoring contracts. (15 minutes each)

This course provides instruction on using the service referral tool in the FamLink case management system for both social workers and fiduciaries. Step-by-step guidance walks through the steps necessary to launch the referral, providing customized details and instructions for the authorization of payments. (15 minutes)

This four-session course provides an interactive, deeper dive into the roles and responsibilities of the major programs within DCYF: CPS Investigations and CPS Family Assessment Response, Family Voluntary Services, and Child and Family Welfare Services. (30 minutes to 1 hour each)

Basics of Substance Abuse

Participants learn the guidelines for the frequency and duration of testing, practices at drug collection sites, detection of adulterated samples and interpreting drug test results. (45 minutes)

Child Development and Well-Being; Education, Health, Adolescence

Participants will come to understand the importance of the ChIPR in conveying information to caregivers and potential placement providers. (20 minutes)

Caseworkers will understand education case planning and documentation requirements as well as how to engage with schools on enrollment, transportation plans, and potential cost sharing agreements. (30 minutes)

This eLearning covers the correct way to administer, log, store, and dispose of medications. In addition, this eLearning will provide information/protocol to revise agency policies and procedures with current information and best practice. (30 minutes)

LEARN is a suicide awareness training that helps participants identify and act on signs of suicide. (3 hours)

This training focuses on conducting research related to early identification and intervention for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), which is also referred to as autism.  (1 hour)

Engagement and Partnership with Caregivers

This training discusses the parenting decisions that fall to the caregiver according to the Prudent Parent Law and provides additional considerations when making prudent parenting decisions for children in care. (45 minutes)

This eLearning will teach the participant the steps to initiate and monitor efforts completed by the Relative Search unit.  (30 minutes)

Indigenous Practice

You will learn how to select, install, and fit a car seat correctly; review basic consideration for caring for youth with behavioral or medical needs; and learn about the Indian Child Welfare Act, which outlines the rights of federally recognized Tribes, Indian Children, and their families. The historical context and present need for this law is discussed.

In this course, you will review several principles of trauma-informed care and consider how these apply to your routine interactions with children awaiting placement. Significant time is spent addressing children who have challenging behaviors or exceptional care needs. This includes building a stronger understanding of policy and practice around youth who run away or have returned from being on the run. And you will discuss your takeaways from the eLearning related to the Indian Child Welfare act.

This training will help you understand how to be a Qualified Expert Witness (QEW) to testify in Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) cases. When considering removal of an Indian child from their home, various perspectives are reviewed, including those of QEWs. They are qualified to testify regarding whether the child’s continued custody by the parent or Indian custodian is likely to result in serious emotional or physical damage to the child. QEWs provide testimony in ICWA cases and have substantial knowledge of the prevailing social and cultural standards and child rearing practices within a Tribal or Indian community. 

Permanency Planning

Participants will explore personal bias, how it influences their professional decision-making, and how to counter bias in making permanency decisions that reflect the best interest of children. (1 hour)

This course aims to prepare learners to lead and guide permanency planning meetings. Participants will learn about the permanency planning meeting process and participant engagement. (9 hours)

This eLearning will help workers understand the process around how to complete a visitation between a child and a parent at a DOC prison or electronically. (1 hour) 

This training covers the role of family time in child well-being and permanency, as well as the social worker’s role in providing parent-child and sibling family time. (1 hour)

This training covers the development of skills to support virtual family time. Participants will learn about remote supervised visits, preparing families for remote visits, and appropriate planning. (1 hour)

Risk and Safety Assessment

Participants will learn the four means by which legal authority to place a child may be granted: law enforcement protective custody, hospital holds, court order, and a voluntary placement agreed to by the child’s legal parents. (30 minutes)

Learners are walked through recognizing sentinel injuries; understanding Abusive Head Trauma and its connection to the Period of PURPLE Crying; identifying when to seek medical consultation, how to submit a referral, and what information to provide; and how to locate important county protocols and policy resources online. (3 hours)

The training reviews possible indicators of child abuse and neglect, and common situations that cause mandatory reporters to call in a report. (45 minutes)

Self Care

This course will help social workers and supervisors who do ongoing work in the child welfare system with identification of and responses to secondary trauma. (3 hours)

Tactical Skills

This brief eLearning will help you select, fit and install the correct seat each time you need to transport a child. (30 minutes)

Participants will learn a range of prevention behaviors that can keep tense situations from turning into crises. (90 minutes)

Participants will learn a range of prevention behaviors that can keep tense situations from turning into crises. (45 minutes)

Participants will learn how more to effectively manage a situation that has become a crisis and may involve threats to someone’s safety. (45 minutes and 90 minutes)