As an administrative professional you are important, and so is your safety! This eLearning will help you learn a range of prevention behaviors that can keep tense situations from turning into crises. You'll learn about understanding where anger comes from and what it looks like, tools to help others stay calm and communicate what they need, helpful communication strategies for tense situations, acknowledging individual and cultural differences and how they affect communication, and understanding how to manage your own emotional responses to hard situations. There are many opportunities within the course to examine real-life situations and practice applying the information. Upon completing the course, learners will be better prepared to manage their own and other people’s responses to tense situations, helping everyone stay calm and safe.       

As a meeting facilitator you have an important role in achieving safety, permanency and well-being for children in out of home care. Permanency planning meetings can be emotionally charged. This eLearning will help you learn how more effectively manage a situation that has become a crisis and may involve threats to someone’s safety. The key insights in this course are identifying a crisis, verbal strategies to help de-escalate situations and managing your own reaction, as well as specific stay-safe strategies and considerations during and after a crisis. There are many opportunities within the course to examine real-life situations and practice applying the information. Upon completing the course, you will be better prepared to respond in a crisis and prevent safety issues from occurring. You will have a better understanding of what to do when staff safety threats do occur, and what to do after such incidents.

Children and youth in care who identify as LGBTQ+ face challenges that can affect their quality of life far beyond their experiences in the child welfare system. Because of this, it is especially important that Licensing Division Foster Care employees can assess providers’ and caregivers’ ability to provide a welcoming and affirming environment for LGBTQ+ children and youth.

The training first takes you through an exercise that allows you to reflect on possible personal biases that may affect your evaluation of prospective caregivers, children and youth during the licensing process. You will then go through a learning around SOGIE/LGBTQ+ terminology and discuss how to talk to children, youth and providers about LGBTQ+ culture, a critical component of interviewing.

A key component of the course is the focus on being able to review and apply the laws and minimum licensing requirements around assessing a provider’s ability (not just willingness) to care and support children and youth who identify as LGBTQ+, as well as the provider’s level of knowledge pertaining to LGBTQ+ children and youth, and their interest in expanding that knowledge as needed. This learning includes defining welcoming and affirming environments. You will learn characteristics of those spaces, such as open conversations with children and youth, and talk about how to support caregivers in providing positive and affirming surroundings.

Finally, you will dive in for a deep look at nondiscrimination-focused RCWs, WACs, and Policies, Practices and Procedures, and discuss how to apply them in licensing and investigations. You will have an opportunity to build skills formulating and applying questions based on current licensing standards and mandates.

At the close of the training, you will have a personal and professional action plan that outlines what you have studied and the steps you will take to best engage with, learn from and advocate for your clients.