2019 West Coast Child Welfare Trainer's Conference
The WCCWTC Conference Schedule
Pre-Conference Tuesday, July 30th, 2019
This year’s pre-conference workshop will allow participants to explore what webinars can do well, and confront myths about what they can’t do well. The pre-conference day will provide in depth information around specific topics related to webinar during the large group sessions and via two topic-specific breakout sessions in the afternoon. We hope everyone will get specific questions answered and begin to develop ideas for putting this technology into action! We’ll be using both our live classroom and some webinar elements, so be sure to bring a laptop or tablet and headphones or earbuds.
Link to presentation material(s) HERE
7:30 am-8:30 am: Breakfast & Networking
8:30 am - 9: 00 am: Welcome
9:15 am - 12:00 pm: Webinars; the good, the bad, the ugly
Learn about engaging people; responsive learning; and practical, skills-based learning during the morning session.
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm: Lunch
1:00 pm - 2:30 pm: Webinars; your plan moving forward
Learn about all the technical pieces and managing your plan to implement webinar instruction.
2:30 pm - 3:00 pm: Breakout Group 1
3:15 pm - 3:45 pm: Breakout Group 2
General Conference Day 1: Wednesday, July 31st, 2019
7:30 am - 8:30 am: Breakfast
8:30 am - 9:00 am: Welcome
9:00 am - 10:15 am: Keynote Speaker, Jill Duerr Berrick –An Impossible Imperative
Link to presentation material(s) HERE
Jill Duerr Berrick serves as the Zellerbach Family Foundation Professor in the School of Social Welfare at U.C. Berkeley. Her research focuses on the relationship of the state to vulnerable families, particularly those touched by the child welfare system.She has written or co-written 11 books on topics relating to family poverty, child maltreatment, and child welfare services and has written extensively for academic journals. Her newest book, The Impossible Imperative: Navigating the Competing Principles of Child Protection examines child welfare professionals and the morally contentious and intellectually demanding choices they regularly face in their work with children and families. In this keynote, Jill will outline the eight fundamental principles that undergird the field, and will explore how child welfare trainers can use these principles to help child welfare professionals think more critically about the principled decisions they make.
10:30 am - 12:00 pm: Session One Breakout Workshops
Creative Expression & Mindfulness Techniques to Support Relaxation and Resilience For Trainers
Presented by Rachel Bavis & Rocky Jaeger
Link to presentation material(s) HERE
This session is designed to introduce creative expression and mindfulness practices as tools to support relaxation and, ultimately, resilience for trainers. We will identify typical stresses that trainers experience & design creative ways of addressing those stressors with a playful piece of art. We will use the symbolism of the turtle in our creative expression, as it signifies good health, perseverance, and slow and steady progress (to name a few). And we will relaaaaaaax. We will also learn ways the creative expression and mindfulness tools can be used in our own trainings to help participants become more present and self-aware and, thus, enhance the learning environment. No prior painting experience is needed, as this is a guided step-by-step process.
Partnering with Persons with Lived Experience in Training
Presented by Anzette Shackelford & Irene Becker
Link to presentation material(s) HERE
The voice of Persons with Lived Experience is crucial for training staff in a variety of human service settings. These powerful voices help new and seasoned professionals to be empathetic and understand how the professionals’ role can help or hinder persons with lived experience work towards their own goals of success. Typically, Persons with Lived Experience have brought their voice to training in a panel format, to share their stories of their lives and/or experience within a given human service setting.
This presentation will focus on moving beyond a panel format and looking at a variety of ways to integrate the voice of Persons with Lived Experience as an equitable trainer or co-trainer in an organization. To partner more equitably with Persons with Lived Experience the presenters will discuss organizational strengths and barriers, as well as suggested strategies for removing barriers and enhancing/adapting traditional T for T opportunities. Participants will also have an opportunity to network and share their own successes and suggestions in working with their own organizations on incorporating equitable training/co-training opportunities for Persons with Lived Experience.
Adapting Experiential-Based Learning into Dynamic Online Curriculum
Presented by Jean Brownell, Lisa Ball, & Nathan Fowler
Link to presentation material(s) HERE
An effective caregiver pre-service training has to happen in a classroom. Right? When state legislature mandated that Washington convert its pre-service training for new foster parents into an online course, we had to get creative. How do you adapt a fully interactive, experiential classroom training into an online format? How do you teach empathy and add a human element to something that is entirely digital? How do you preserve the supportive cohort effect? This session will break down many of the challenges the team faced while producing this course and how they overcame the obstacles to create a successful online version.
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm: Lunch
1:00 pm - 2:30 pm: Session Two Breakout Workshops
An Impossible Imperative: Navigating the Competing Principles that Animate Child Welfare Practice
Presented by Jill Duerr Berrick & Trudi Frazel
Link to presentation material(s) HERE
Protecting children from maltreatment may be an impossible task. Press coverage often suggests the over-or under-involvement of social workers; instances when parents or children experienced tragic injustice at the hands of the child welfare system. Accounts from the media often characterize caseworkers as either biased baby snatchers, or error-prone bureaucrats who miss signals of risk. And admonitions from public officials, who claim that the standard for the profession is perfection, or who claim a zero-tolerance policy for error, do little to help the public understand the complexity of the work.
Impossible? Maybe, if we insist on a fault/blame paradigm. But the measure of child welfare as right or wrong is misguided; “perfect” is irresponsible. Efforts to protect children from harm are imperative, but caseworkers can’t do their job following simplistic prescriptions. Social workers should instead be judged by their efforts to conduct principled practice.
This presentation will lay out eight fundamental principles as a suggested guide to practice. Each principle appears simple and straightforward at first blush. Upon closer examination, however, we discover that these foundational principles collide with one another --not in the rare, exceptional cases, but in the average cases that serve to typify child welfare practice. Participants will discuss how these tensions live at the heart of child welfare, how to wrestle with prioritizing one value over another, and how to address the moral ambiguities at stake when privileging one principle over another.
The presentation has relevance to instructors engaged in training the child welfare workforce and to social workers currently engaged in practice.
Training and Supporting Prior Military Personnel in Child Welfare
Presented by Vanessa Verigin and Tracey Eason
Link to presentation material(s) HERE
Due to current military policy, there is likely to be an increase in the number of former military personnel entering the civilian workforce (up to 6% of military personnel as of August, 2018). Some of these individuals will likely find a new calling in child protection, which may lead them to your classroom! Our training will provide an overview of some of the diverse cultures that exist within the military, including perspectives on learning and training within the armed services. We will review respectful terminology and address common assumptions and generalizations about veterans and their experiences. We will compare/contrast military culture with the organizational culture encountered in child welfare, with specific attention to how this plays out in the learning environment. Helpful instructional techniques will be explored, including communication styles, classroom norms and sensitivity to trauma and triggers.
Since military culture is deeply values-driven, we will explore some of the most powerful common values that can form the foundation for a successful and rewarding career in child protection. We believe that trainers will be most effective when they are able to connect with students through those values in order to build on existing strengths. This training is likely to be of most benefit to trainers who have limited to moderate exposure to military life, although we warmly welcome former service members and family. Our session will incorporate networking and group processing -all levels of knowledge are appreciated!
Webinars: Lessons Learned
Presented by Jean Brownell & Lisa Ball
Link to presentation material(s) HERE
If you missed the pre-conference but are still interested in learning about our experiences with Webinars, please attend this workshop with Alliance for Child Welfare Excellence Curriculum Developers. We’ll discuss our learning experiences as we implemented webinar instruction in Washington.
2:30 pm - 3:00 pm: Afternoon Snack/Networking
3:00 pm - 4:30 pm: Session Three Breakout Workshops
Reflections in The Magic Mirror
Presented by Nora Gerber
Link to presentation material(s) HERE
This workshops offers a two-fer:
One: Every trainer deserves to know how others are seeing them when they stand to deliver. This session will provide a technique for personal and professional reflection ... through the lens of the Magic Mirror.
Two: Have you been asked to coach others in their presentation style? The Magic Mirror methodology is especially useful for raising self and peer awareness of which verbal and non-verbal messages enhance and which may impede the delivery of content. Magic Mirror process tools (logistics, skill self-assessment, risk-reduction strategies, delivery tips, and TOL action plans) are offered for your use in replicating this training of trainers methodology at your agency. These materials are also available on the West Coast wiki.
Cultural Responsiveness Academy (CRA) Overview
Presented by Wanjiru Golly
Link to presentation material(s) HERE
Cultural responsiveness is key for all social work practitioners to embrace, in order to provide the best care for families involved with child welfare agencies. Teaching someone to be culturally responsive is a challenge as they have to recognize and acknowledge their personal biases and subsequently change their behavior, and this requires both self-awareness and motivation. Individual and institutional bias impact disproportionality and disparity of services, in regards to families involved with child welfare agencies. The County of San Diego CWS decided to take an innovative approach in regards to training staff. In February 2016, they collaborated with the Academy for Professional Excellence to develop the Cultural Responsiveness Academy(CRA.)
The CRA is a learning experience focused on a targeted population, and in San Diego the African American population was the focus in 2016 and 2017, and the Native American population in 2018. The program expanded to San Bernardino County, with a focus on the African American population. Staff from all levels of the Agency, from leadership to social workers and support staff, participate in the CRA. The program includes an eLearning, six monthly in-class sessions, and coaching to process classroom material and support for the practicum project they work on to close out the year. A comprehensive evaluation of the program includes assessments of both individual and organizational changes in practice. This session highlights the structure of the program,lessons learned, and intended outcomes.
Growing Innovative Training Teams for Tomorrow
Presented by Kim Fordham, Heidi Mansfield
Link to presentation material(s) HERE
Good training teams go beyond good curriculum. There are many components to creating a team that is effective and has an impact on your audience. This workshop will explore strategies using organic growth and forward thinking as a backdrop for creating an innovative training teams. Our focus is on developing trainers and training programs using agility, scanning the horizon, technology and adaptive leadership. “Its takes over 400 repetitions to create a synapse in the brain or 12 repetitions when you use play to teach.”-Karyn Purvis. Growing our trainers and training room has been fun using sensory experiences, book clubs and playful engagement. We utilize a parallel process that engages trainers in experiences that they can use in the classroom as well as in their home. We will be sharing ideas on how to grow your team both personally and as a professional trainer. There will also be significant time to share your big ideas and innovative training structures!
5:30 pm - 8:30 pm: Puzzling Adventures at Riverfront Park
General Conference Day 2 Thursday, August 1st, 2019
7:30 am - 8:30 am: Breakfast
8:30 am - 9:00 am: Welcome
9:00 am - 10:15 am: Plenary: Improving Outcomes: A panel discussion with coaching professionals
Link to presentation material(s) HERE
Panelists from various states and programs will share their experiences with implementing and facilitating coaching programming in their respective organizations. They will share lessons learned, what works and what to avoid. This is a great opportunity for you to learn through child welfare's experienced coaches. Whether you are interested in implementing a formal coaching initiative, want to build your own coaching skills or already have coaching programming and want to learn ways to continue to grow in practice, this is panel will fill your cup! Moderated by Melissa Bernier, LISW
10:30 am - 12:00 pm: Session One Breakout Workshops
3, 2, 1...Go...We’re Live with Experiential Web Course Exploration.
Presented by Rachel Bavis & Rocky Jaeger
Link to presentation material(s) HERE
This session is designed to experiment with different techniques for creating an interactive, experiential web course. We will show snippets of a live summit we did for SW Helper, discussing the pros, cons and ways to improve. We will also engage in a creative expression activity together to practice the experiential web course process and share stories and ideas to learn from each other.
Cultural Responsiveness Academy (CRA) Overview
Presented by Wanjiru Golly
Link to presentation material(s) HERE
Cultural responsiveness is key for all social work practitioners to embrace, in order to provide the best care for families involved with child welfare agencies. Teaching someone to be culturally responsive is a challenge as they have to recognize and acknowledge their personal biases and subsequently change their behavior, and this requires both self-awareness and motivation. Individual and institutional bias impact disproportionality and disparity of services, in regards to families involved with child welfare agencies. The County of San Diego CWS decided to take an innovative approach in regards to training staff. In February 2016, they collaborated with the Academy for Professional Excellence to develop the Cultural Responsiveness Academy (CRA.) The CRA is a learning experience focused on a targeted population, and in San Diego the African American population was the focus in 2016 and 2017, and the Native American population in 2018. The program expanded to San Bernardino County, with a focus on the African American population. Staff from all levels of the Agency, from leadership to social workers and support staff, participate in the CRA. The program includes an e-Learning, six monthly in-class sessions, and coaching to process classroom material and support for the practicum project they work on to close out the year. A comprehensive evaluation of the program includes assessments of both individual and organizational changes in practice. This session highlights the structure of the program, lessons learned, and intended outcomes.
Growing Innovative Training Teams for Tomorrow
Presented by Kim Fordham, Heidi Mansfield
Link to presentation material(s) HERE
Good training teams go beyond good curriculum. There are many components to creating a team that is effective and has an impact on your audience. This workshop will explore strategies using organic growth and forward thinking as a backdrop for creating an innovative training teams. Our focus is on developing trainers and training programs using agility, scanning the horizon, technology and adaptive leadership. “Its takes over 400 repetitions to create a synapse in the brain or 12 repetitions when you use play to teach.”-Karyn Purvis. Growing our trainers and training room has been fun using sensory experiences, book clubs and playful engagement. We utilize a parallel process that engages trainers in experiences that they can use in the classroom as well as in their home. We will be sharing ideas on how to grow your team both personally and as a professional trainer. There will also be significant time to share your big ideas and innovative training structures!
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm: Lunch
1:00 pm - 2:30 pm: Session Two Breakout Workshops
Co-facilitation Flamenco: How to Make Technology an Effective Co-facilitator
Presented by Hilary Cobb & Melissa Bernier
Link to presentation material(s) HERE
For times when in-person co-facilitation is not an option, technology can act as a co-facilitator. Using the 4 P process, participants will learn how to use technology to enhance the presentation of information and training experience for learners.
Writing SMART Learning Objectives
Presented by Anzette Shackelford & Irene Becker
Link to presentation material(s) HERE
Writing learning objectives is a core skill needed to develop training in any modality. It provides the road map to what is going to be trained. Based on Bloom’s Taxonomy, this workshop will introduce participants to a structure for creating learning objectives, from introductory to advanced levels of knowledge, skills and values. New and experienced trainers can deepen their writing “LO” skills in activities that focus on:
- Ensuring learning objectives are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely
- Developing and writing learning objectives at introductory and advance levels
- Discussing how to design activities to meet the learning objectives at every level
Come and have fun while enhancing your “LO” skills!
Teaching the Indian Child Welfare Act to Child Welfare Stakeholders
Presented by Harmony Bercier & Stephanie DeCoteau
Link to presentation material(s) HERE
The Indian Child Welfare Act, enacted in 1978, mandates courts and child welfare systems carry out specific active efforts in order to keep children connected to their families and culture. ICWA training has to not only empower workers with knowledge of their roles and responsibilities, but also affect deeply-held personal beliefs.Training hurdles for workers include: (a) belief that ICWA is a race-based law, (b) belief that ICWA negates the child’s best interest, (c) implicit or explicit racial bias of the worker, (d) competence to work across cultures with indigenous families, (e) belief that ICWA cases are “too much work”; (f) competence in working directly with tribal workers, and finally, (g) understanding of the technical mandates of the law and how they should be carried out.
This training will discuss one state’s efforts to transform ICWA training and how ICWA implementation is perceived in the community. The multi-pronged efforts include a two-day training curriculum offered to new workers, supplemental training on culture offered by a Native American Training Institute, the development of forms and guides to improve technical processes, and interagency relational work which includes tribal, state, county, university, and community partners to address barriers to ICWA implementation and improve policy and practice.The focus of this session will be on the two-day curriculum. Training outlines will be shared, along with theory of change for the trainings, learning objectives and subsequent evaluations that were developed in consultation with the Capacity Building Center for Courts. The trainer will facilitate a discussion with the audience about the ways that they support ICWA implementation in their jurisdictions.
ICWA training has to not only empower workers with knowledge of their roles and responsibilities, but also affect deeply-held personal beliefs.This training will discuss one state’s efforts to transform ICWA training and stakeholder perception of ICWA. The focus of this discussion will be on the two-day ICWA training curriculum. The training outline will be shared, along with the theory of change, learning objectives and subsequent evaluations developed in consultation with the Capacity Building Center for Courts.
2:30 pm - 3:00 pm: Afternoon Snack/Networking
3:00 pm - 4:30 pm: Session Three Breakout Workshops
It's More Complicated Than That! How to Support Learners in Managing Complexity in Child Welfare
Presented by: Matthew Gebhardt
Link to presentation material(s) HERE
Child welfare professionals face a growing (and seemingly overwhelming) complexity in both the systems they work in, and the decisions they must make. Using principles of Learner Centered curriculum development, this workshop will provide concrete tools for creating training that engages adult learners in way that will prepare them for that complexity and support the critical thinking required for them to be effective in their work.
This will be a hands on workshop, participants will leave with specific tools and new possibilities for whatever staff development activities they are currently developing or plan to develop.
The Third Partner: How Technology Can Enhance Co-facilitation
Presented by Hilary Cobb & Melissa Bernier
Link to presentation material(s) HERE
This presentation will provide participants with information related to effective co-training, as well as ways technology can be used to enhance the 4 P-process of effective co-facilitation: Planning, Preparing, Presenting, and Processing.
The Power of Play: Activities to Energize and Engage Learning for Child Welfare Professionals
Presented by Jeremy Lansing
Link to presentation material(s) HERE
“The opposite of play is not work, it is depression.” -Brian Sutton-Smith.
Come play with us as we move in a way that feels fun and safe. The mind and body are connected, and adult learners crave activities that build trust, engage critical thinking skills, and bring joy.Play is an evidenced based way to engage the mind and body, which can be comfortable for some and frightening for others.This workshop will provide new and veteran trainers alike with concrete tools for turning any child welfare training into a kinesthetic learning opportunity.Inspired by Playworks’ national movement to bring healthy play to children and adults nationwide and research by the National Institute of Play, you will leave this session feeling inspired to play more...at work!
General Conference Day 3 Friday, August 2nd, 2019 (half-day)
8:00 am - 9:00 am: Breakfast
9:00 am - 12:00 pm: Round-table learning circles and conference wrap-up
Join us as we reflect on this year’s conference, continue to network, and share ideas and suggestions for our 2020 conference by participating in our Learning Circle planning!
Learning Circles are a cross between a mini-workshop and a networking seminar. They are NOT formal presentations. They are low key, focused conversations on a topic. A leader delivers a brief and specific skill or an overview of a topic, then facilitates a small group conversation around the topic. It is an opportunity for networking and for questions and responses.
Following the Learning Circles, we’ll hold a brief Plus/Delta to help the planning committee prepare for the 2020 West Coast Child Welfare Trainers Conference. This is a valuable opportunity for the committee to hear about what went well, what could be improved and what participants would like to see at future conferences.
Not sure how to use this wiki? Watch Wikis in Plain English!
Pre-Conference Tuesday July 31, 2018
Join us for the Pre-Conference skill building session where you can learn how we’ve integrated Debriefing with Good Judgement into our training and coaching models in Washington State!
We’ll share our experiences, lessons learned, and successes as Alliance Coaches have learned to utilize the Debriefing with Good Judgement framework from the Center for Medical Simulation at Harvard Medical School to encourage reflection, provide feed-back, and coach child welfare workers on critical knowledge and skill attainment.
Watch an adult interview simulation and debrief in action! You’ll walk away with some great ideas and tools for integrating simulation training and this debriefing model into your child welfare training programs!
Pre-Conference Schedule
8:30-9am Breakfast & Networking
9-11am History of Coaching in Washington
11am-12pm Adding Debriefing with Good Judgement
12-1pm Lunch
1-3pm Live Simulation
3-4pm Debriefing Simulation
4-4:30pm Wrap up & adjourn
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