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We offer a range
of trainings for family-centered practitioners which have two primary
principles in common: 1) in order to produce significant change,
services must maintain an ecological perspective on family concerns
and their solutions; and 2) the goal is to empower individuals and
families to manage their own lives effectively.
The following is a partial
list of training available for tailoring to your agency/community
needs. Please click on the title of the training for course
descriptions.
Family Centered Assessment
Training
Family Centered Assessment
with Immigrant and Refugee Families
Conducting Family-Focused
Child Protection Investigations
Family Development Specialist
Training
Family Development Specialist
Recertification Training
Family Outreach Worker
Training
Strength-Based Case
Planning
Developing an Outcome-Based
Case Plan
Solution-Focused Case
Management
Intensive Family Services
Family Group Decision
Making: A Decision Model that Strengthens Families
Group Facilitation Skills
Training
Professional Writing
for Family Centered Practitioners
Welcoming Fathers into
the Circle of Family Centered Practice
Working with Substance
Abuse in Families
Stress, Crisis and Critical
Incidence
Youth-Specific Trainings:
Incorporating Resilience
Factors into the Assessment Process with Youth
Transition from Successful
Residential Treatment Back Home: A Solution-Focused Approach
Improving Outcomes for
Youth in Transition
Youth Centered Team
Meetings
Permanent Connections
for Youth in Out-of-Home Care
This strength-based training is for supervisors and workers in agencies
committed to family-centered practice. Participants develop techniques
to identify strengths. They also learn to use basic systematic tools
to analyze family and community dynamics, in order to understand
the current family situation and the family's possibilities for
the future. Risk is explored as an ongoing consideration, with strength
identification and assessment presented as the mechanisms for determining
and working with short and long-term risk stabilization. The integration
of solution-focused and family-systems approaches are explored,
with considerable attention placed on applying assessment information
to a measurable case plan. This skill-based training involves spending
considerable time practicing assessment on participants' case examples.
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This training focuses on major areas that must be considered in
the assessment of immigrant and refugee families. Some of the issues
explored include: reasons for immigration, immigration status, language
issues, cultural taboos, literacy level, educational attainment,
and trauma. Participants develop skills to identify strengths, and
learn to use basic systematic tools to analyze family and community
dynamics in order to understand the current family situation and
the family's possibilities for the future.
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This training was designed specifically for Child Protective Service
Agencies that are trying to move toward a differential response
system of investigation. The goals of a family-centered investigation
include: engaging the family, making decisions on safety based on
a differential assessment of the family situation, and developing
a measurable safety plan. While information on the specific incident
that brought the family to the attention of the agency is important,
the focus of the investigation must include the family’s willingness
and ability to provide a safe environment for the child (ren) in
the immediate and long-term future. Investigators must be able to
efficiently use some basic assessment tools that will allow them
to make accurate decisions, and this training helps them do so.
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Family Development is a model of family-based intervention focused
on low-income families who want to improve family functioning and
achieve economic independence. The NRCFCP developed this training
and certification program with the Iowa Association of Community
Action Directors. The training develops the ability of many groups
(i.e., Community Action, Head Start, county extension, teachers,
community health nurses, and family support workers) to provide
family-centered programs. Participants learn systems theory, family-centered
case management, and strategies for family and community empowerment.
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Family Development
Specialist Recertification
This training is designed to assist Certified Family Development
Specialists to revisit the foundational concepts of Family Centered
Work. The recertification course reviews the use of the Family Development
Model of Family Centered Practice to facilitate and improve family
functioning and economic independence. The course will assist FDS
workers in further implementing Family Development Concepts by allowing
ample time for case consultation and group technical assistance.
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The NRC/FCP, in cooperation with the Des Moines Area Healthy Start,
has developed a training curriculum for front-line paraprofessional
and professional outreach workers. Participants develop new skills
in the basic concepts and techniques of family-centered practice.
The training is designed in a module format, which allows organizations
to adapt materials to fit the specific needs of the participants
and their agency. Certification is available upon request.
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This training helps workers focus on families' strengths, rather
than on their deficits. It also teaches the skills necessary to
develop and implement a strength-based case plan for intervention.
The approach is consistent with a family-centered philosophy, and
shares the decision-making process of case planning and implementation
with the family. This practical training focuses on the philosophy
of this approach and the interviewing techniques necessary to engage
and empower the family.
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This strength-based training is for supervisors and workers in agencies
committed to family-centered practice. Participants learn ways to
engage families in treatment and to formulate outcome-based case
plans utilizing family strengths to assure family progress toward
change. The training focuses on applying assessment information
to a plan that is behavioral-specific, able to measure change, culturally
competent, and realistic/attainable. Participants practice developing
plans for cases familiar to them.
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This training will present participants with a family-centered case
management model based on solution-focused theory and interviewing
skills. Topics include: The five elements of family centered case
management, the assisting relationship, social economy and the value
of systemic assessment tools, change theory, solution focused interviewing
skills, outcome based behavior specific case plans, and using outcome
indicators as measures of progress.
Participants in this training become familiar with family systems
and theory, and the goals of family-centered practice. They learn
how to use basic diagnosis tools to analyze family and community dynamics,
engage families in treatment, identify behavioral goals, assure family
progress toward change, concurrently plan, and effectively terminate
services. Accurate assessment and application to the case plan are
critical for the success of families under the time lines of ASFA,
and the training addresses these issues.
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Intensive Family Services
Supervisors and intensive treatment workers learn a comprehensive
model of family assessment and a brief, structural and strategic
approach to working with multiple-needs families and their communities.
Participants are introduced to advanced skills in the treatment
of chemical dependency, and spouse and child abuse. This course
is not designed as a substitute for clinical training with supervision,
yet introduces sophisticated family therapy methods to form a sound
foundation for further work.
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This 2-3 day training is for residential providers, foster care
workers, and family-based therapists. It focuses on various methods
of supporting family connections during separation, transition,
and reunification. Participants learn to conduct a structured family
meeting using the family’s support system, and to use tools
such as goal-setting and visitation to enhance reunification potential.
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Family Group Decision Making (FGDM), developed in New Zealand in
the mid-1980s, has been adopted by a number of jurisdictions in
the United States as a process for engaging families involved in
the child welfare system in safety planning, case planning, and
reunification decision-making. FGDM empowers families to define
their needs and direct the decision-making processes, and it elicits
and solidifies the family's informal as well as community support
network. The NRCFCP offers training and technical assistance
in all facets of FGDM and family team meetings (FTM), including
establishing an FGDM process in a community, training for facilitators,
and training for caseworkers who prepare families for and participate
in FGDM/FTMs.
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Group Facilitation
Skills Training
Rather than focusing on a particular model, this training is designed
to teach the skills needed to effectively facilitate group meetings.
These skills include: pre-meeting strategies, feedback, managing
diversion, mediation, negotiation, conflict resolution, reaching
consensus, plan development, and evaluation. Considerable practice
time is included in the training session.
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Professional Writing
for Family Centered Practitioners
This workshop teaches
strategies for effective communication through the common types
of written documentation in family centered practice including case
notes, court reports, and referral letters.
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Welcoming Fathers
into the Circle of Family Centered Practice
Participants will be able
to describe the research findings on the important contributions
of fathers, including non-residential fathers, to the well-being
of children. We will describe best practices for engaging fathers
and paternal relatives whose children are involved in the child
welfare system, and practice skills for productively addressing
conflict between fathers and mothers and the larger family system.
Participants will identify any explicit or implicit biases they
have about non-residential fathers, how these biases might affect
their work with fathers, and how to move beyond them to best practice.
This training can be adapted for agency administrators with a focus
on organizational change and development of father-family services.
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This training brings together state-of-the-art case management strategies
and current knowledge about substance-abusing families (including
situations where there is a drug-exposed infant) to help workers
effectively resolve these increasingly common and complex child
welfare situations. The training primarily focuses on the application
of recent thinking on solution-based approaches to working with
individuals who abuse substances and their families. A matrix
for decision-making in child welfare cases willl be introduced.
This training is appropriate for workers in child welfare,
mental health, and juvenile services.
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This training will highlight issues and trends within the disciplines
of substance abuse, mental health, and child protective services
that agencies continually face in the delivery of services to children
and families. Discussion will center around approaches and practices
that can assist in the creation of a more effective, comprehensive
and seamless service delivery system. This workshop will present
a non-deficit approach that enables families to grow beyond just
surviving to thriving.
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This interactive hands-on training will assist workers and their
supervisors to identify what is "crisis" and "critical
incidence." Participants will develop techniques to minimize
the effects of stress (PTSD) in times of crisis. In addition, participants
will explore effective interventions and aftercare issues from a
family centered perspective.
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The greatest strength a family has is its spirit. Family rituals
have enabled the family to survive for centuries. This workshop
focuses on using family rituals to rekindle family spirit. The use
of family rituals in case management, family development, and family
therapy are explored.
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Youth-Specific Trainings:
This workshop will help participants create a holistic assessment
of youth that incorporates not only the "problem" behavior
but also the techniques to identify strengths and resiliency factors.
Integration of solution-focused and family-systems approaches will
be explored, with considerable attention placed on applying assessment
information to a measurable case plan.
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Transition from
Successful Residential Treatment Back Home: A Solution-Focused Approach
This training focuses on the adolescent transition from residential
treatment to home or another alternate living situation. Successful
strides made in residential treatment must be integrated into the
home or alternate environment. Through the use of problem/solution-focused
circular questions, the worker can ascertain the maintenance and
reinforcement factors that allowed the youth to do well in treatment,
and integrate that success in the home or alternate environment.
This training outlines a process that starts "in home" work prior
to successful discharge from residential training.
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Improving Outcomes
for Youth in Transition
[read more]
Youth Centered
Team Meetings
A youth-centered
approach to case planning places the youth at the helm of planning
for his or her future, with support from family, kin and other significant
adults. Come learn how to build and facilitate a dynamic youth-centered
team process which will support older youths' capacity for self-determination,
a key factor in successful transition to adulthood.
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Permanent Connections
for Youth in Out-of-Home Care
Helping older youth in care
develop connections with significant adults is a key factor in helping
to achieve youth permanency as well as for providing and sustaining
support as they enter adulthood. The training will provide
teach specific worker skills and tools for helping youth identify,
establish and maintain permanent connections. Because placement
instability often disrupts relationships, strategies for stabilizing
placements will also be addressed.
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