The National Resource Center for Family Centered Practice (following
its predecessors, the National Clearinghouse for Home Based Services
(1977-1981) and the National Resource Center on Family Based
Services (1981-1994) was one of the first organizations in the
country to promote home-based, family centered services, later known
as "family preservation." The Center and its staff
and partners, including the National
Indian Child Welfare Association, have worked in almost every
facet of child welfare research, evaluation, training and program
development, include placement prevention, in-home services, permanency,
adoption, paternal involvement, family group decision-making/family
conferencing, youth transitioning out of foster care, positive youth
development, reducing the over-representation of minority children
and families in the child welfare system, and child welfare workforce
development.
Recent
major projects in child welfare include Improving
Recruitment and Retention in Public Child Welfare, a
five-year, one million dollar project funded by the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services, Children’s Bureau; Improving
Outcomes for Youth in Transition, a three-year project
funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Children’s
Bureau; an Evaluation
of Iowa's Title IV-B Waiver for Subsidized Guardianship, supported
by the Iowa Department of Human Services and the Administration
for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
and the Minority
Youth and Families (MYFI) Initiative.
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The NRCFCP is engaged in a variety of research and training
activities around the recruitment, retention and development of
workers in the human services. We provide comprehensive, strength-based
culturally competent training for supervisors in a variety of settings,
including public and private child welfare agencies, income maintenance
programs, and family support and family development programs.
Recent major projects include Improving
Recruitment and Retention in Public Child Welfare,
a five-year project funded by the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services, Children’s Bureau to train child welfare supervisors,
and Strengthening
Family Support through Supervision, an eight-day certification
curriculum for family support supervisors funded by Iowa Department
of Management Community Empowerment.
We are part of the National
Child Welfare Workforce Institute, a collaboration of eight
universities (including the University of Iowa School of Social
Work) and the National Indian Child Welfare Association funded by
the Children’s Bureau, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
to build the capacity of the nation’s child welfare workforce by
supporting the development of skilled leaders. Our Executive
Director Miriam Landsman is nationally recognized for her research
on the child welfare workforce. Her recent article, based on her
study of retention among Iowa's child welfare workers, “Pathways
to Organizational Commitment," was published in the journal
Administration in Social Work (2008) and received the Slavin-Patti
Award for Scholarly Excellence.
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The NRCFCP has a long history of work on juvenile justice
system issues including research and evaluation, community planning
and training and technical assistance. Recent work includes community
planning for the implementation of Wraparound to reduce juvenile
justice system involvement Wraparound Project for African American
Adolescents, South Santa Clara County Wraparound for Latino Children
and Youth, and Iowa Wraparound for Latino Youth and Children. These
projects are described below. Significant work has been conducted
in the area of disproportionality in the juvenile justice system
and linkages with the child welfare system (see DMC
Resource Center).
Evaluation of Polk County (IA) Wraparound Project for African American Adolescents Funded by the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), this project engaged the community in a consensus building and planning process to evaluate the feasibility of implementing the Wraparound service model for African American adolescents with co-occurring mental disorders and substance abuse disorders. (2002-2003)
Evaluation of South Santa Clara County (CA) Wraparound Project for Latino Children and Youth
Funded by the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), this project engaged the community in a consensus building and planning process to evaluate the feasibility of implementing the Wraparound service model for Latino children and adolescents with co-occurring mental disorders and substance abuse disorders. (2002-2003)
Evaluation of the Iowa Wraparound Project for Latino Children and Youth
Funded by the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration this evaluation includes process and outcomes measures of community consensus building to implement an exemplary intervention practice. (2000-2002)
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NRCFCP works with educational systems to improve services and performance
in schools. Technical assistance has been provided on issues of
over-representation and disproportionality in school settings (see
Reducing
Truancy at the Des Moines Public Schools: Findings and Recommendations and Reducing
Disproportionality in Suspensions at Des Moines Public Schools:
Findings and Recommendations). Research and evaluation
topics have included the Early Learning Opportunity Act (Evaluation
of the Johnson County Early Learning Initiative click
here), Safe Schools Healthy Students Program (Systems
of Care Network for Elementary School Counseling Program of the
Clinton Community Schools) and culturally competent strengths
based training for schools (Iowa City Community Schools training,
see also PBS).
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The NRCFCP embraces the framework and model for achieving
cultural competence based on the work of Terry Cross.
The Cross model of cultural competence requires that organizations:
- have a defined set of values and principles, and demonstrate behaviors, attitudes, policies and structures that enable them to work effectively cross-culturally.
- have the capacity to (1) value diversity, (2) conduct self-assessment, (3) manage the dynamics of difference, (4) acquire and institutionalize cultural knowledge and (5) adapt to diversity and the cultural contexts of the communities they serve.
- incorporate the above in all aspects of policy making, administration, practice, service delivery and involve systematically consumers, key stakeholders and communities. (Cross, 1989)
The NRCFCP conducts research,
evaluation, technical assistance and training
in the area of cultural competence. Our DMC
Resource Center serves
national, state, and community efforts to reduce disproportionality
and over-representation of minority youth in the juvenile justice
and child welfare systems. We provide evaluation and technical assistance
on reducing health and education-related disparities.
The NRCFCP is a partner
with the University of Iowa School of Social Work in the Institute
for Latino Families and Communities (ISLFC), also known as the Latino
Institute. The ISLFC
provides an organizing framework for the School of Social Work's
current and future projects working with Latino families and communities
and is designed to serve as a resource for culturally competent,
strength-based community resources and training. From
2006-2008, the NRCFCP and the Latino Institute partnered with the
Northwest Area Foundation and the Main Street Project to develop
Raíces, is a four-state project focused on building community capacity
in rural Latino communities in Iowa, Minnesota, Idaho, and Oregon.
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www.public-health.uiowa.edu
The Iowa Center for Evaluation
Research (ICER) was established in 2002 in the University of
Iowa College of Public Health to conduct research and evaluation
for public health programs and providers. In July 2006,
ICER joined the National Resource Center for Family Centered Practice
as part of the research and evaluation division, adding depth to
the Center's public health expertise. The addition of staff
with public health experience enables the NRCFCP to serve programs
with a public health focus, providing evaluation and technical assistance
for community and behavioral health programs and contributing to
the DMC Resource Center by adding an emphasis in health disparities.
Exemplary projects have
been conducted in areas such as pregnancy prevention programs
(Abstinence Only Education and Community Adolescent Pregnancy
Prevention, Life Options), substance abuse prevention and
treatment (Strengthening Communities – Youth, Drug Free
Communities, Iowa Case Management Project, Comprehensive Substance
Abuse Treatment Project for Adolescents/Juvenile Justice (CADS)),
community and behavioral health (Heartland Center
Occupational Safety and Health, Pick a Better Snack and ACT), and
comprehensive cancer control (Iowa Cancer Consortium).
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The National Resource Center for Family Centered Practice has conducted
research, training and technical assistance in the areas of family
development and family support since
1981. Our nationally recognized Family
Development Specialist (FDS) certification training originated
with the work of Iowa Community Action with low income families
to raise families’ capacity to become and remain self-sufficient.
The FDS training has expanded to include workers from a variety
of family support programs in many states, including HeadStart,
pre-school and “at-risk” early childhood programs, employment and
training programs, housing and homeless programs, and visiting nurse
services. Beginning in 2009, with funding from the Iowa
Community Empowerment Professional Development Fund, the NRCFCP
now also offers a comprehensive eight-day training for family
support supervisors, Strengthening
Family Support through Supervision.
On the evaluation front, the NRCFCP
has worked with the Institute for Community Collaborative Studies
(ICCS) since 1998 to document the validity and reliability of tools
for evaluating family support programs. These tools are known
generically as Matrix Models.
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Family development describes the growth, progress, and challenges of diverse families over the course of a life cycle, including the extended family history and cultural experience; marriage, divorce and significant relationships; infant, child and adolescent development; education achievement; work and career; health, mental health and safety. A family development approach supports parents and other family members in enhancing their own and their children’s well being and development. Programs with a family development approach use comprehensive “family-in-situation” assessments and case management strategies which focus on personal and family goal-setting, the skills needed to make a plan work and the social networks necessary to knit all of these domains into a cohesive and resilient life.
Family
support describes both an approach
and a set of services, supports and opportunities that enable and
empower families to successfully nurture and care for their children.
The family support approach affirms that all families have strengths
as well as needs; it recognizes parents as the experts on their
children and families and normalizes the need for support for all
families. The family support approach is not limited
to social services; it can be infused into social institutions such
as schools and health care. Family support services are preventive,
typically voluntary, and usually community based.
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