Use this discussion guide with the CWVE 2022 videos to view a description of each topic, access individual reflection questions to facilitate personal, on-demand learning, and explore conversation starters and team activities with child welfare staff and collaborative partners.   

Learn about quality contacts, why they are important, and how an agency can successfully implement them.

Watch this video to learn how community-based partnerships strengthen families and see what jurisdictions are doing to build lines of collaboration and trust.

Learn about the value of kinship placements when children and youth must live outside their birth parents’ homes. 

Find family engagement strategies for survivors, children, and perpetrators of domestic violence.

Explore strategies for engaging and empowering fathers of color in child welfare. 

Explore additional resources to learn about the challenges of engaging difficult-to-reach populations of youth and young adults.

Learn about the challenges of engaging difficult-to-reach populations of youth and young adults. 

Meet the series cohosts as they talk about sharing lived expertise and power with child welfare agency leaders and staff.

Hear about the experiences of sharing power between a child welfare agency leader in Nevada and a young adult with lived expertise.

Hear how sharing power begins with building trusting relationships.

Hear a father and an agency administrator talk about what needs to be in place to make family engagement easier.

Learn how to effectively present data in digestible and actionable ways that lead to real change.

The manual combines research and guidance on best practices in family empowerment with the evolving field of implementation science. The manual also reinforces and expands on concepts introduced in the Center for States’ Family Empowerment and Leadership Academy (FELA).

Explore the process of transitioning to a prevention-focused child welfare system from several perspectives, including those of a mother and son with lived experience and leaders who set the tone and direction for putting families at the center of child welfare work.