Introduction

In an era of increasing emphasis on accountability in child welfare, information management skills are becoming critical to sound child welfare practice. The push for accountability coincides with the widespread availability of information technologies that improve the ability of public child welfare agencies to collect, process and distribute large amounts of information to a diverse audience. The purpose of this document is to provide trainers with a field-tested, curriculum that offers child welfare supervisors opportunities to learn, enhance and practice needed information management skills. When the training is completed, the child welfare supervisors should be readily able to return to his/her unit and immediately apply the information management skills learned during the seminar to his/her day to day supervisory work.

You are reading a trainer's guide to the curriculum entitled, Using Information Management to Support the Goals of Safety, Permanency and Well Being. The Institute for Child and Family Policy, Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine developed this curriculum as part of a project funded by the Children's Bureau, Administration for Children and Families under Section 426 of the Social Security Act, which provides federal funds for Institutions of Higher Education to train personnel in the field of child welfare. The project team created a competency-based curriculum that promotes a new approach to supervision, which includes the use of information management by child welfare supervisors to support the goals of safety, permanency and well being. The curriculum is designed to train supervisors how to use Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information Systems (SACWIS) data to generate information critical to casework supervision. Unlike many other training programs, the focus of the curriculum is not on the mechanics of using computers. The aim instead is to teach supervisors how to incorporate the use of information generated by the SACWIS system into their day to day work as supervisors. Thus, this curriculum is designed to complement and be integrated with, not supplant, a state's existing SACWIS and supervisory training.

Curriculum Development Process

During the first year of the grant, the Muskie project team focussed on developing the curriculum. The project team coordinated with representatives from the Maine Bureau of Child and Family Services to define supervisory competencies relating to information management for child welfare supervisors. Based on these competencies, the project team developed a core curriculum entitled Using Information Management to Support the Goals of Safety, Permanency and Well Being. The project team collaborated with the Oregon Human Services Data Users Group, the Massachusetts Department of Social Services and the Kennedy School of Government to create two experience-based case studies for the core curriculum. Finally, 16 child welfare supervisors in Maine participated in and evaluated a customized version of the training.

During the second and final year of the grant, the project team collaborated with child welfare agencies in five additional states to customize and fully field-test the curriculum. As part of that process, the project team provided training to child welfare agency trainers in the pilot states on the content of the curriculum to help prepare them to understand, customize and deliver the curriculum to supervisors in their states. The states were Kentucky, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah and Wyoming. Based on the lessons learned from piloting the curriculum in these states and the results of the state by state evaluation process, the project team has now produced this field-tested trainer's guide to curriculum for use by public child welfare agencies throughout the United States.

Training Approach

In an effort to accommodate the varying training needs of states, the curriculum is organized into eleven modules. The project team expects that states will implement the curriculum in a variety of ways. The modular approach enables each state child welfare agency to customize the curriculum to meet its unique needs -- in effect to tailor a curriculum for itself from the modules developed by the project team. For example, in the pilot process, some child welfare agencies successfully implemented all eleven modules in precisely the suggested order; other agencies implemented only some of the modules; other agencies heavily customized, then implemented the modules and still other agencies reorganized the modules to better suit their needs. The curriculum is intended and proven to accommodate and support this type of adaptation and modification by state personnel. Prior to deciding what modifications, if any, an agency wants to make to the curriculum, the project team suggests that you look at the curriculum as a whole and determine which modules or activities within a module can meet an identified training need. Clearly, you will, at minimum, want to customize the curriculum by replacing the term SACWIS with the name of your system and adding child welfare measures, data and reports generated by that system.

The curriculum as presented here in its entirety is designed to accommodate 16 - 20 trainees and take place in two parts. The first part is a two-day session. Using experiential, active learning methods the participants will cover the material in Modules 1-10. At the close of the second day, participants will be prepared to implement exercises with their supervisory units based on the training material. The second part of the training should then take place two weeks to one month after the first so the participants will have time to complete the exercises back in their offices. The second session is a half-day and may be designed for smaller groups. Module 11 will be covered during these sessions. Most of the time during these follow-up sessions will be devoted to having the participants discuss their experiences while completing the exercises with their supervisory units, give and get feedback on those experiences and evaluate the impact of training as a whole.

A Brief Review of the Curriculum

In the first module, Welcome and Introductions, the participants are welcomed to the training, introduced to the curriculum and walked through the handouts.

The implementation of SACWIS was a major change in the way that casework supervisors perform their jobs. To help supervisors understand and deal with the constant changes they face, part of the curriculum is concerned with the impact of technology in the workplace. Module 2, The Impact of Technology in the Workplace, examines the impact that technology, more specifically SACWIS, has had on the organization and the role of a child welfare supervisor.

To give participants a context for thinking about automation, Module 3, Systems, Data, Information and Knowledge: Putting the Pieces Together, highlights the Adoption and Safe Families (ASFA) requirements for outcomes and performance measures. Additionally, it focuses on the outcomes and measures developed by the home state, how data is collected and stored to support ASFA requirements and the value of data, information and information management to an organization's achievement of the ASFA goals of safety, permanency and well being

Two modules are devoted to training casework supervisors to identify, locate and then use the key data they need to support casework practice. Module 4, Supervising for Results: Identifying and Locating Key Data helps supervisors identify some of the data they need for supervision and determine its location in SACWIS and related reports. This module also has a 'best /most effective practices' exercise, which allows participants to share their own tips and techniques for easily gathering information on a case. Module 5, Using Information Management to Support Casework Supervision, allows the participants to explore the process of data and information gathering from case records and supervisory discussions. By it's conclusion, participants will be able to identify several methods of locating and eliciting the data, information, knowledge he/she needs to supervise for results and explore how SACWIS supports supervision. The exercise to support this Module requires participants to review real SACWIS case data and then determine what questions they would need to ask to get the information they need to proceed.

That's the end of day 1.

Module 6 launches day 2 of the training. Module 7, Data Analysis Tips, Tools and Techniques, presents several activities designed to introduce the child welfare supervisor to basic analytical methods, tools, concepts and approaches and to understand the varying information needs of people at several levels in the child welfare agency. Using a case study developed by the Oregon Human Services Data Users Group, 'Abuse on the Increase in Cascadia County', and actual reports and data from the SACWIS system, participants will become familiar with analytic tools to sort through data, determine which data matter most and make critical decisions.

Whether caused by technology, new policies, procedures or regulations, change occurs frequently and regularly in the child welfare field. In order to be effective in leading and modeling change management skills, child welfare supervisors must understand the dynamics of avoiding resistance to change and how to build commitment to change. Module 8, Technology Is Changing the Job of the Child Welfare Supervisor: Are You a Change Leader? provides an opportunity to build those skills and, using a case study titled 'FamilyNet: An Automated Child Welfare Information System', explore organizational issues such as efficiency, accountability, and hierarchy when a major change, such as the implementation of a new information system, occurs in the workplace. We also present a 3-phase model for building commitment to change and then ask participants to apply the model in several real life exercises.

In Module 9, Options for Skills Improvement, participants practice the activities they will implement with their units from what they have learned in the training. Module 10 wraps up day 2 and the first part of the training.

When the training reconvenes several days later, they take up Module 11 entitled So…How Did It Go?. The purpose of this module is twofold:

• to allow participants the opportunity to debrief and receive feedback from trainers and colleagues on the back - in - the - office experience, and
• to conduct an in-depth participant evaluation on the impact of the seminar while gathering comments on the seminar for incorporation into later versions of the curriculum.

The final chapter in the curriculum document, Lessons Learned: Notes from the Pilot States, presents information from the year two pilot states describing their experience as pilot states, including their lessons learned from and the impact on practice, policy and systems of delivering the training.

Concluding Remarks

This curriculum was designed to introduce supervisors to the concept of using data and information to improve child welfare practice. We elected to focus on child welfare supervisors because supervisors are the link between policy and front line workers. This group is often expected to guide, direct, support and educate- do all the accepted supervisory tasks, while the organization, environment, form and format of the job is changing and, for some, their expertise appears to be diminishing. Clearly, this is a group that needs frequent, diverse and regular opportunities to be reminded of how important their work efforts are to protecting the welfare of the children in care.

Although the curriculum was initially designed for supervisors, parts of it have been successfully used with public policy students, child welfare managers, administrators, data analysts and caseworkers. Feel free to use this curriculum to introduce and promote the concept of the information management throughout the agency. Good luck implementing this curriculum in your state.

Acknowledgments

During the development of this curriculum, many talented experts in child welfare, curriculum design and adult education guided the Muskie project team. Early exposure of the curriculum framework at child welfare conferences, feedback from child welfare professionals and thorough field testing by the pilot states of the trainer's notes, exercises and handouts contained in the trainer's guide helped polish the curriculum to better convey the complex concept of information management to child welfare supervisors. The project team appreciates and values the generous advice, guidance, responsiveness and opportunities provided by the Children's Bureau Project Officer, Judith Jhirad-Reich, Ph.D.. We thank Jan Cooper for starting the project off so well. We gratefully acknowledge the energy, expertise, dedication, skill, professionalism and good humor that the staff of the Muskie School's Institute for Child and Family Policy, especially its director, Kris Sahonchik, and the pilot state representatives devoted to this project. This curriculum could not have been completed without their support, effort, wisdom and patience. Our sincere thanks go to:

Muskie School, Institute for Public Sector Innovation
Freda Bernotavicz
Sue Eberstin
Matt Galleta
Trish Mosher
Gretchen Robbins

Kentucky Department of Community Based Services
Denis Hommrich
Linda Taylor

Massachusetts Department of Social Services
Linda Carlisle
Mary Ellen Bennard
Peter Watson

Oregon Department of Human Services Data Users Group
Kati Neville
Jim White

Oregon Department of Services to Children and Families
Leslie Schockner

Rhode Island Department of Child, Youth and Families
Bob Cipriano
Lori Herz
Jerry Noel

South Carolina Dept of Social Services
Sissy Jeffords
Cynthia Maxwell
Don C. Rosick

Utah Department of Child and Family Services
Navina Forsythe
Anita Sorensen

Wyoming Department of Family Services
Marianne Lee
Andy Aldridge

For additional information on this curriculum, contact Susan Kanak, Project Director, at 207-780-5840 or skanak@usm.maine.edu

This curriculum is available without cost at the Muskie School website: http://www.muskie.usm.maine.edu/sacwis

Institute for Child and Family
Contact Susan Kanak with questions