COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS & LINKAGES: REACHING OUT TO WORK TOGETHER
This
module provides participants with the opportunity to learn about what are community partnerships and linkages—the kinds
and continuum of collaboration. Participants also learn about who are potential partners from three different
perspectives. Finally, participants also have the opportunity to apply this
knowledge to working with specific families.
Competency 2: Participants
are able to describe who are their potential partners and collaborators from
three different perspectives.
Objective
2.1: Participants
can describe the full universe of potential service providers they may need to
work with in child welfare practice.
Objective
2.2: Participants
can identify potential partners and collaborators ranging from the formal to
the informal.
Objective 2.3: Participants can identify
potential partners and collaborators that might be needed in implementing
family-centered practice at each stage in the casework process.
Competency
3: Participants
are able to apply their knowledge about potential partners and collaborators to
working with specific families.
Handout 2.6: Four Family
Scenarios
Overhead
projector
5
Flipcharts (one for trainer, four for small groups)
Markers
Masking
Tape
Tell the participants the following:
-
In Module 1, we spent time learning and talking about
why community partnerships and linkages are so important for successful child
welfare work.
-
Now we're ready to learn about actual community partnerships
and linkages.
Ask participants:
What is a community partnership? In your own words,
what do you think a community partnership is?
Generate responses that could include:
-
A community partnership is a working relationship a
worker forms with another service provider or informal support person that
may be helpful for the families we work with.
-
It's a formal agreement between two agencies who share
the same clients so they agencies work together productively.
-
Sometimes community partnerships involve co-locating
staff in different agencies.
Tell participants:
Ok, now that we've defined community partnerships, we need to do some thinking about what are the different kinds of community partnerships.
Place Transparency
2.1: The Continuum of Community Partnerships and Linkages on the overhead projector, and call participants' attention
to Handout 2.1: The Continuum of Community Partnerships
and Linkages.
Discuss
the continuum of community partnerships. Explain that there are six different
kinds of community linkages and partnerships, with linkages to the left of the
continuum and partnerships toward the right of the continuum. Explain each of
the six kinds after you read the kind's title, below:
1.
Basic referrals of clients
for other services.
2.
Joint case planning with other
service providers, the family, and the family's network. This may require
joint training.
3.
Joint program development to
create needed new programs and services.
4.
Organizational infrastructure—written
agreements for information sharing, joint management information systems,
staff liaison positions, locating staff in another agency, etc.
5.
Creating a community collaborative
for child protection. Refer participants to Handout
2.2: Community Collaboratives in Child Welfare and explain that this issue of the Resource Center's newsletter focuses
on community collaboratives in child welfare. Participants should take this
issue back to their offices and study it after the conclusion of the training.
6.
A state-level collaborative
or Cabinet for Children, Youth, and Families Services.
Ask
participants:
Do you have any questions or comments on this continuum or the kinds of
community linkages and partnerships?
Tell
participants the following:
-
I want to stress that we should
be thinking of community partnerships and linkages developmentally. There
is a growing movement in child welfare in the United States to gradually develop
these linkages and partnerships in growing sophistication over time.
-
So if, for example, your agency
has gotten really good at making and using effective referrals, perhaps the
next developmental step for you will be to focus on developing good joint
case planning with the family and other providers and family supports, perhaps
through family group conferencing or decision making.
-
Or if, for example, you already
do good joint case planning, then maybe you are ready to begin focusing on
joint program development, and so forth, so that over a period of several
years, your jurisdiction moves forward on this continuum, moving from less
sophisticated community linkages
to more sophisticated community partnerships.
-
Do you have any questions or
comments about thinking about community partnerships developmentally?
Tell
participants:
-
Now that we've defined community
partners and learned about the different kinds of partnerships, we're ready
to talk about who are our potential
partners.
-
The range of potential collaborators
that child welfare workers can partner with is almost as great as a person's
imagination and creativity.
-
There are three different ways
I want us to try to answer the question: Who are my potential partners?
o
The first way is to describe
the full universe of potential service providers we may need to work with in child welfare.
o
The second way is to identify
potential partners and collaborators ranging from the formal to the informal.
o
The last way is to think about
and identify potential partners and collaborators that might be needed in
implementing family-centered practice at each stage in the casework process.
Step 2: Defining
the full universe of potential service providers we may need to work with in child welfare
Place
Transparency 2.3: A Full Service Array in Child
Welfare on the overhead projector, and call participants' attention
to their handout.
Explain
that this handout lists potential partners needed by child welfare workers.
Explain
that while no one community can afford to have all these services, the chart
will give participants an idea of the range of potential partners.
Explain the continuum:
-
Preventive/community-based/early
intervention services are on the far left. These are probably community-based
services that exist in your community to whom you frequently make referrals
for your clients.
-
The second column represents
the investigative/assessment services that are typically provided by the child
protective services unit/agency.
-
The third column represents
home-based services. Your agency probably provides some of these and also
probably contracts for some of these services with other providers in your
community.
-
Column Four lists out-of-home
services. Again, your agency probably provides some of these and also probably
contracts for some of these services with other providers in your community.
-
Column Five lists exit-the-system
services. These services are also typically provided by the child welfare
agency, but your agency may also contract for some of them.
Explain that
this continuum contains the full range of potential collaborators child welfare
workers may need to develop partnerships with.
Ask
participants:
Do
you have any questions about or comments on the handout?
Generate
some responses, which may include:
-
I think our community is the
weakest in the preventive services.
-
We currently don't have many
of the services listed under system exit services.
Step 3: Identify
potential partners and collaborators ranging from the formal to the informal
Tell
participants:
-
OK, so we've learned the universe of all the potential
people we may need to collaborate with in child welfare.
-
But let's look at potential partners in another way.
Let's think about them as a range of potential collaborators in services ranging
from the formal to the informal.
Place Transparency 2.4:
Categories of Potential Collaborators
on the overhead projector, and call participants' attention to their handout.
When
thinking about our potential partners, we want to make sure we don't leave any
one out. So, let's look at seven different categories of potential partners,
ranging from the formal to the informal.
1.
Services within your own agency but not within your
unit/division (for example, TANF).
2.
Formal, traditional service providers that child welfare
workers often work with (for example, mental health providers, domestic violence,
educators).
3.
Other service providers that child welfare workers don't
usually work with (for example, police, health care providers).
4.
Less formal services (for example, Big Brothers/Big
Sisters, Boys and Girls Clubs, Police Clubs, family support centers).
5.
Neighborhood and community organizations and networks
(for example, faith-based groups, neighborhood associations).
6.
Public services (for example, utilities, transportation).
7.
Other community stakeholder groups (for example, the
business community, city and county government officials, civic organizations,
Chamber of Commerce).
Ask participants:
Do you have
any questions or comments about these categories of potential partners?
Tell
participants:
-
OK, we've learned two different
ways to identify potential partners. Now, let's think about potential partners
in a third way—identifying who we may need to work with in the community when
we are working with children and families who have come into the child welfare
system.
-
Place Transparency
2.5: A Snapshot: Family- and Community-Centered Child Welfare Practice on the overhead projector, and call participants' attention
to their handout.
-
As you know from your own experience,
child welfare casework has a number of stages, beginning with engagement of
the family, including assessment and safety planning, and implementing the
service plan that you and the family has developed.
-
It's helpful to focus on these
stages of casework and to think about what potential community partners could
help you at each of the stages so that you can be successful with the family.
So let's brainstorm together and identify potential partners at each of the
following stages:
Answers could include:
|
CASEWORK STAGES |
POTENTIAL HELPFUL PARTNERS
|
|
Engagement |
-
Extended family. -
People from the family's
social network. -
Other professionals who
are involved with the family—for example, school personnel, etc. |
|
Assessment |
-
Information obtained
from others: schools, churches, medical agencies. -
Assessment explores community
support systems. |
|
Safety
Planning |
-
Extended family. -
Community members—neighbors,
community groups, etc.—participate in the development of a safety plan. |
|
Service
Planning |
-
Extended family. -
People from the family's
social network (friends, school, church, etc.). -
Potential service providers. |
Out-of-Home Placement |
-
Foster parents. -
People who can help to
maintain family and community connections: visitation, kin, schools,
etc. |
|
Implementing
the Service Plan |
-
Services in the community
to implement the individualized plan (e.g., school performance, health,
transportation, income maintenance, etc.). |
|
Permanency
Planning |
-
Family members. -
Child welfare workers. -
Community members. -
Service providers who
work together in developing alternate forms of permanency. |
|
Reevaluation
of the Service Plan |
-
Family members. -
Service providers. -
Social network. -
All the people who have
been involved in the service planning and implementation up to now. |
-
Any other questions or comments
about needed potential community partners in the casework process?
Step
1: Introduce this activity
Tell participants:
-
In Module 2, we've
learned how to identify our potential partners.
-
Now we're going
to apply this knowledge to working with specific families.
- Please
break up into four groups, and then I will give you instructions.
- Each
group is assigned a specific family: Group 1 has the Sanchez family. Group
2 has the Banks family. Group 3 has the Hunt family. Group four has the Shivara
family. Call participants' attention to Handout
2.6: Four Family Scenarios.
-
In each group,
begin by selecting a recorder who will report your results to the large group.
The recorder will record the results on the flip chart paper.
- After
you've selected a recorder, you should read the family scenario out loud.
- After
you've read the family scenario, you have two assignments:
- First,
identify the family's existing resources, whether it is kin, a religious affiliation, friends, service
provider, etc.
- Second,
based on the family's needs as you find them in the written scenario, identify
other services and supports the family is not now currently using but may need to address their current,
troublesome situation.
- You
have twenty minutes to complete your task.
Step
2: Small group reports
-
Have each group report to the
large group. Each group should first tell the large group participants about
the family assigned to the group.
- After
Group 1 reports, ask the participants from the other three groups if they
have any additional suggestions or comments.
- After
all four groups have reported, debrief the exercise:
Does
anyone have any comments or questions about the exercise we just completed? Did
it help you think concretely about needed community partnerships and linkages
your families might need?