Alliance Course Catalog

Area Administrators need to achieve competency in understanding the child welfare practice as well as in the higher levels of systems management. This course provides Area Administrators with an introduction of baseline competencies for middle managers in public child welfare, and opportunities to develop and practice new skills regarding these competencies. Managing self, managing others, managing systems and managing outward are the four main themes integrated throughout this course.

Day 1: Foundations for Managers in Child Welfare
Day 2: Effective Relationships as a Manager
Day 3: Strategies for Effective Organizational Communication
Day 4: Growing and Sustaining Effective Internal and External Teams
Day 5: Essentials for Resource Management
Day 6: Strategic Thinking and Planning Tools for the Manager

Coaching for Area Administrators provides one-on-one skill building sessions using a Learner Centered Coaching Model. Coaching provides essential professional development opportunities to support the daily work you do as an Area Administrator to support the supervisors in your office or program. Topics that can be covered are integration of the Quality Matters Series, use of the Learner Centered Coaching Model, skill building opportunities for integration of Coaching into daily work, or observation and feedback on skills used to engage with staff. Sessions can be scheduled in 30 minute intervals and based on your need.

For years society has encouraged colorblind ideology without taking into consideration the impact this has on People of Color.  Through video, interactive activities and discussion of the research, participants are challenged to examine implicit bias, stereotype threat and its effect on cross cultural relationships and ethnic/racial identity development.  As a result, participants deepen their appreciation of challenges facing People of Color, grow in self-awareness and learn ways to mitigate the impact.

Objectives:
Participants Will…

1. Engage in courageous conversations;
2. Deepen their understanding of implicit bias and stereotype threat;
3. Learn strategies to mitigate the impact of implicit bias.

This training is presented by Cultures Connecting, LLC. Cultures Connecting, LLC was founded in 2008, providing culturally relevant professional development, keynote addresses, consulting and coaching services to organizations seeking to improve their staffs’ ability to effectively work with diverse cultures. 

Owners, Caprice D. Hollins, Psy.D., and Ilsa M. Govan, M.A., have over 30 years combined experience researching race related topics, designing curriculum, and facilitating culturally relevant professional development workshops.

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.

Drug testing practices and their use in child welfare assessment of safety and risk is covered in this course.  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. Participants will know what to test and how to include this in the assessments of parents involved in the child welfare system, focusing on the behavior of parents, and knowing what a drug test can tell us is emphasized.

Collaboration and mentorship are central tenets of leadership, and coaching provides an opportunity to help supervisors identify practice barriers that have direct impact to the children and families you serve. In this course, you will learn how to build coaching capacity into your work supervising staff. At the center of this is the Learner Centered Coaching model, which enhances practice skills and self-efficacy of DCYF supervisors. It aims to reduce trauma response in the child welfare practice environment by highlighting positive regard, cultural humility and a trauma-informed lens.

This training will provide a foundational picture of how to utilize coaching in supervision. The introduction covers identification of behaviors that create a sense of psychological safety for individuals on your team, a must-have for success. The core of the training will highlight the principles of complex skill development in adults, as well as, the Learner Centered Coaching model itself, including the principles, values and behaviors that make up a “coaching stance” and the five steps of learner centered coaching. Throughout the course you will be asked to consider what you might do differently in your ongoing staff development work, and the individual skills you might be using at each step in the coaching process.

The education in this training goes beyond the webinar. Before your training is complete, you will have a chance to apply this information by using handouts and reflection worksheets to consider how you will integrate coaching into your work. You will also submit a coaching plan and begin the coaching process with two of your staff members. And to encourage your long-term professional development, you will be supported after you complete the course, through individualized coaching and resources to help you develop and enhance your coaching skills as you move forward.

This in-service level training will teach participants the steps for identifying Indian Children, address practical steps to input information into FamLink, and give CA staff tips on completing Ancestry Charts and submitting referrals to the Native American Inquiry Request (NAIR) unit to fulfill the requirements of the Federal ICWA, State Law and Department of Children, Youth, and Families policies.

The NCAST Parent-Child Interaction (PCI) Feeding Scales are designed for parents/caregivers and children age birth-1 year (12 months). The PCI Feeding Scales are an assessment tool which provides valid and reliable measurements of parent-child interactions. When used in child-welfare, these scales can provide recommendations for services to strengthen parent-child interactions, and serve as reliable pre-/post- measures of progress made through service engagement.

Once individuals become certified to use the PCI Feeding Scales, they must prove reliable through annual re-certification. This one-day course provides participants with the opportunity to achieve annual reliability in the use of this tool. Re-certification will allow individuals to maintain certification in the use of the PCI Feeding Scales.

Current Certification as an NCAST Assessor

Las personas que toman este curso digital aprenderán sobre su rol como denunciadores de abuso por mandato cuando se sospecha abuso o negligencia infantil y los pasos para reportar estas preocupaciones. Este entrenamiento provee información sobre los indicadores que pueden indicar que abuso o negligencia infantil está ocurriendo y las situaciones comunes que en que es necesario llamar a la agencia correspondiente para hacer una denuncia. Las personas tomando este curso también aprenderán a considerar el impacto de los prejuicios culturales cuando se hacen estas denuncias y el problema de disparidad racial representada en el sistema. También este curso explica los requisitos federales para reconocer el linaje de un niño/a con una tribu indígena o su afiliación a una tribu reconocida federalmente. Finalmente, este curso también repasa los pasos para comunicarse con la Administración de Protección Infantil y hacer una denuncia, la información que se necesita, y lo que ocurre una vez que la denuncia ha sido hecha e investigada. 

During this two-hour workshop, you will learn what characteristics make up a quality contact with children and youth during initial and on-going assessment and/or out-of-home placement, and why quality contacts matter. You will have an opportunity to watch a social worker conduct a health and safety visit with a youth, and then you will apply skills observed to a case scenario. Throughout the workshop, Alliance coaches will support the integration of quality contacts into social work practice.

Participants will leave this training with a common language and understanding of what is meant by cultural competence and the work they need to do to grow their ability to effectively engage across cultures, an understanding of Racial Microaggressions and why they are problematic, and an increased ability to have courageous conversation about difference and to effectively engage racial tension.

This training is presented by Dr. Caprice Hollins, co-founder of Cultures Connecting, LLC.  Dr. Hollins received her doctorate in clinical psychology with an emphasis in multicultural and community psychology in 1998.   She has over 14 years of experience teaching graduate courses, working with historically marginalized populations, researching, studying, and facilitating race related conversations. Her experience includes opening and directing the Department of Equity & Race Relations for Seattle Public Schools, developing and implementing district-wide and school-based trainings, while utilizing her background in psychology to assist district leaders and staff, institutionalize change to promote equity and social justice. She also currently works as a part-time core faculty in the department of counseling at The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology.

The Child Safety Framework and the Structured Decision Making Risk Assessment are the tools that should guide caseworkers in making their most important decisions. Both tools aim to improve critical thinking and objective decision making, and ultimately to help DCYF correctly identify what level of intervention – from placement out of the home to providing referrals and case closure – is the most appropriate for each child and family. As a supervisor, you must understand these tools, but you also have a responsibility to integrate the tools into your supervision. This eLearning aims to strengthen your understanding by providing an overview of each of these tools. It also asks initial questions about how you might continue to integrate these tools into your work within your unit.

The “Supervising for Safety” series comprises three webinars and an eLearning that aim to support supervisors in the understanding and application of assessment tools and integration of these tools into their supervision. 

In this training, you will first identify the legal, policy and practice guidance that requires children remain home, or return home, whenever safely possible. Then, you will practice guiding a case worker in applying the safety framework tools to their case, and making a decision about whether it’s safe to return a child home.  You will focus in particular on the safety threshold and safety plan analysis questions, which guide safety decisions once we have sufficient information about the family and situation.  You will review guidance on safety planning, and consider how your supervision can support case workers in developing strong safety plans, and monitoring these until the safety threat is no longer active. Lastly, you will make plans to integrate strategies into your supervision practice that help ensure that the safety framework is integrated into all discussions you are having on this topic.

The “Supervising for Safety” series is mandatory for Area Administrators. This individual webinar is mandatory for CPS/FAR and CFWS staff.

This three-hour course covers Situational Leadership and Supervisor Readiness (4Rs). The course will review the three necessary components and strategies to impact performance. The Situational Leadership Theory developed by Paul Hersey and Kenneth Blanchard presents a model that suggests that to be effective leaders, supervisors must match their leadership style to an individual worker’s level of job readiness (job maturity). The manager’s effectiveness depends on their ability to correctly identify the supervisor’s readiness level and to employ the appropriate leader style in that particular situation. Supervisor readiness for any task is determined by the supervisor’s ability and willingness.

This course focuses on providing information and engaging in conversation about LGBTQ+ children, youth and families. You will learn about identifying and addressing systemic institutional and personal biases when serving LGBTQ+ children, youth and families. Activities and self-reflection exercises will prepare you to return to your work and create a welcoming, safe and affirming space. Included in this training is updated terminology, resources, and current data/statistics.