IN-SERVICE TRAINING

Relationship Based Child Welfare:

Supporting Partners, Strengthening Families, and Sustaining Hope

FACILITATED BY

Jamie G. Averett, JD, CWLS

Quality Parenting Initiative Consultant-former dependency judge

Wednesday September 30, 2020  from 9:00am – 12 noon

or

Thursday October 1, 2020 from 1:00pm – 4:00pm 

About The Training:

The traditional principles of child welfare and the legal practices that guide child welfare are by nature generally adversarial, and do not promote the expectation of working together as partners. However, research does not support this traditional system as being an effective process, supportive of family centered practices. Ironically, many times our traditional system creates a larger divide in families and inflicts additional trauma to the children we are called to protect. What research instead confirms, is one of the most effective ways to support families is through a relationship based approach. Relationships are established by developing connections and forming trust. Therefore, all child welfare stakeholders — caregivers, birth parents, youth, case managers, service providers, GALS, legal partners, and community leaders – must be integrated into this process and must be treated as respected partners in order to be successful and for sustainable change to occur.

Developing collaborative relationships require demonstrative leadership, not only setting the expectations for change, but modeling the expectations for change. Relationship based child welfare must not only be incorporated into daily practice and interactions, it also must display continuity throughout all processes in order to create ongoing promise.

The goals of this training will be as follows:

• Challenge stakeholders to engage in collaborative, innovative efforts to engage one another to move beyond the accepted, traditional practices, and move towards setting expectations that strengthen working relationships with one another;
• Incorporate evidence based research that supports cultivating strong relationships;
• Provide suggested tools of how to create effective, working relationships;
• Explore how developing a relationship based approach will support fostering support and respect of others, will strengthen co-parenting relationships, will improve placement stability of children, will provide more thoughtful transitions for children and will ensure more timely permanency for children.