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Agenda and Session Summaries

Agenda and Session Summaries

Thursday, July 12, 2018

Sessions featured engaging presentations by national experts, child welfare agency staff and partners, family leaders, and youth.

Workshops focused on specific topics and were designed to increase understanding, convey information, and provide practical applications.

Skills seminars presented opportunities to develop new strategies and learn new skills.

The exhibit hall and networking breaks offered additional opportunities to learn about ongoing initiatives across the country, access available resources and tools, and chat with peers and subject matter experts.

Meet the speaker activities following presentations included question-and-answer periods with presenters, offered guided discussions with peers, and highlighted practical application.

10 a.m. (EDT) Opening Plenary                                                                                       Auditorium

Welcome and Introduction: Fostering a Healthy Workforce

The child welfare work that is so essential to our communities cannot survive without an engaged child welfare workforce steeped in a framework of shared values that guide this work. Through storytelling and the sharing of personal experience, the dynamic opening session encouraged participants to continue the work of child welfare and to reengage with the fundamental values that drive it. Speakers focused on prioritizing families, supporting child and family well-being, and building a healthy and stable workforce.

Presenters

Moderator

11:30 a.m. (EDT) Concurrent sessions: Strengthening the Workforce
(Recruitment and Retention)

Collaborating to Conduct a Workforce Needs Assessment
(workshop)

In this informative session, representatives from the Quality Improvement Center on Workforce Development (QIC-WD) described the organization’s objectives and provided an overview of a workforce needs assessment process it used with its eight project sites. In an interview-style format, the QIC-WD representatives conversed with staff from Oklahoma and Washington, two of the eight project sites, about their experiences participating in a workforce needs assessment process, highlighting critical data elements, analytic strategies, external engagement and collaboration, and how they used data to approach intervention selection to address the needs of their child welfare systems’ workforces.

  • Virtual reflection activities concentrated on initiating and implementing a workforce needs assessment at a child welfare agency.

Presenters

Moderators

  • Ida Drury, the Kempe Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect
  • Megan Paul, Center on Children, Families, and the Law, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Coaching for Success (skills seminar)

This workshop promoted the use of coaching within the context of child welfare supervision and casework practice to increase and improve staff confidence and performance to achieve agency goals related to safety, permanency, and well-being. Participants learned how to integrate coaching into their daily interactions.

  • Virtual reflection activities focused on understanding the benefits of coaching, identifying barriers to developing and using coaching, and building capacity for coaching at a child welfare agency.

Presenters

Moderator

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1:30 p.m. (EDT) Concurrent Sessions: Supporting the Workforce (Safety and Resiliency)

Simulation Innovations: It’s Not Just Role Play Anymore (workshop)

Simulation training for child welfare workers is an innovation that can assist workers in learning important skills, as well as prepare them for handling the threat or reality of physical violence. This session highlighted three different types of simulations that are being used throughout the country to train and build the skills of workers that mimic both the conditions and content that a worker will encounter while on the job.

  • Virtual reflection activities addressed strategies to implement simulation training at a child welfare agency.

Presenters

  • Todd Franke, Department of Social Welfare, UCLA
  • Betsy Goulet, School of Public Affairs and Administration, University of Illinois, Springfield
  • Susan Evans, Center for State Policy and Leadership, University of Illinois, Springfield
  • Chad McDonald, College of Social Work, University of Utah

Moderator

Restore, Refresh and Reenergize: Organizational Strategies to Address Secondary Traumatic Stress in the Workforce (skills seminar)

Providing services to vulnerable families is complex and demanding, and it inherently exposes workers to traumatic situations. This skills seminar focused on strategies for providing ongoing support to staff working in a trauma-exposed environment. It also presented organizational measures to address coverage and caseloads; empowerment and advocacy; support systems; and recognition, team building, and peer support.

  • Virtual reflection activities focused on opportunities, challenges, and barriers to implementing strategies to combat secondary traumatic stress in the workplace.

Presenters

Moderator

  • Jean Swift, National Child Abuse and Neglect Technical Assistance and Strategic Dissemination Center

3:30 p.m. (EDT) Closing Plenary                                                                                    Auditorium

Closing Reflections

The inspirational closing session celebrated the important contributions of the child welfare workforce and examples of child welfare workforce successes around the country. The speakers summarized the themes that emerged from the day, including Associate Commissioner Milner’s new vision for the child welfare workforce; innovation in training systems, coaching, and leadership; and the importance of organizational culture and worker safety.

Presenters

Moderator

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