High turnover and job stress in the field of child protection is detrimental to the effectiveness of these programs and creates a gap in meeting the needs of families and children. For this reason, the Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare, in collaboration with the Minnesota Association of County Social Service Administrators Children's Committee and the Minnesota Department of Human Services, conducted an electronic survey in February 2016 to better understand the state of the child protection workforce in Minnesota.

The survey was sent to 1,948 frontline child welfare staff. Of these, 734 indicated they worked specifically in child protection, involuntary foster care, or adoption. The 734 respondents were predominantly female (87 percent) and Caucasian (93 percent) and were along the age spectrum of 20 to 25 to over 60 years old. The survey findings related to job satisfaction, the impact of secondary traumatic stress, and the adequacy of supervision and peer support.

The following is a sample of the survey's findings among the child protection respondents:

• Two-thirds (67 percent) reported they were satisfied with their jobs; however, 68 percent also reported feeling overwhelmed.
• Four-fifths (83 percent) of respondents reported experiencing secondary traumatic stress, while only 63 percent reported that they felt supported enough to manage the stress. Thirty-seven percent reported that secondary traumatic stress had a negative impact on their job performance.
• More than three-quarters (78 percent) reported receiving adequate supervision; however, most of this supervision centered on administrative monitoring and compliance rather than support or education.
• A vast majority (95 percent) reported that they received support from their peers.

Furthermore, 79 percent of child protection workers plan to stay in their current jobs, whereas 21 percent plan to seek other employment within the next year, which may be a conservative estimate. In the next 12 months, it is expected that one in four child protection professionals will seek other employment. The respondents reported that higher salaries, lower caseloads, and fewer administrative requirements would help keep them from leaving their positions.

The Minnesota Child Welfare Workforce Stabilization Study 2016: Child Protection Summary Report is available at http://cascw.umn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/WFSS_Summary.WEB_.pdf (286 KB).
 

Between January and June 2016, the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) sponsored a series of community cafés in Anchorage, Hooper Bay, Kotzebue, Sitka, Sutton, and Wasilla. The cafés were attended by business leaders, educators, faith-community representatives, foster parents, grandparents, military personnel, parents, Tribal members, and youth, among others. One of the main goals of these gatherings was to facilitate a discussion about the Strengthening Families program and its five protective factors: parental resilience, social connections, knowledge of parenting and child development, concrete supports in times of need, and social and emotional competence of children. A new report from the Alaska DHSS presents the qualitative data collected at the cafés in order to inform and improve prevention and family support services in the State.

The community café discussions were conducted in small groups or used audience-response technology, which is a live polling technology using remote "clickers." Audience response allows participants to vote on an issue or topic anonymously and see results instantly displayed on a monitor. It also enables café facilitators to collect community feedback, analyze results, and rank the specific priorities of each Strengthening Families protective factor.

The findings and top priorities were similar across all community cafés and include the following:

• Parental resilience—Participants emphasized the need for workplaces and employers to be more flexible, as well as the need to connect at-risk families with someone able to access services.
• Social connections—Participants emphasized the need for more community gatherings and events that support the exchange of cultural traditions, language, stories, and skills.
• Knowledge of parenting and child development—Participants emphasized the need for in-home coaching for new parents and support from elders and extended family.
• Concrete supports in times of need—Participants emphasized the need for more local services, as well as a way to connect families with someone to help them access these services.
• Social and emotional competence of children—Participants emphasized the need to help parents tend to their own emotional and personal needs, as well as help them provide a nurturing and loving environment for their children.

In addition to a general summary, the report, Let's Talk About Safe Kids and Strong Families!, includes a section on each community that highlights the methods, participants, and findings particular to that area.

The full report is available at http://dhss.alaska.gov/ocs/Documents/Publications/pdf/CommunityCafeReport_2016.pdf (5,670 KB).

For more information about Strengthening Families, visit the website for the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) at http://www.cssp.org/. The CSSP website also offers information on community cafés, parent cafés, and world cafés at http://www.cssp.org/community/constituents-co-invested-in-change/community-and-parent-cafes. 
 

The Workforce Development Planning & Assessment Tool Kit, produced by the National Child Welfare Workforce Institute, is a companion resource to the Workforce Development Framework (WDF). The toolkit applies the principles of the WDF to an agency setting and offers a comprehensive approach to creating a workforce development roadmap by guiding agencies through the following three steps:

• Introducing tools to systematically gather information about the agency’s current workforce strengths and gaps, as well as by assessing what influences the agency in its hiring practices
• Providing examples of strategies that help to close the gap between the agency’s current workforce and the workforce needed to support its mission
• Helping the agency put together an action plan

 The Workforce Development Planning & Assessment Tool Kit is available at http://wdftoolkit.ncwwi.org/index.html.
 

The National Latin@ Network, in collaboration with Latino community organizations La Paz, Trans Latina Coalition, Mujeres Latinas en Acción, Voces Latinas, and Casa de Esperanza, launched a free, online, and bilingual resource called the Building Evidence Toolkit. This toolkit was designed to help those in Latino-serving organizations in the field of domestic violence strengthen their documentation and program evaluation skills.  

The Building Evidence Toolkit is divided into four sections.

• New to Building Evidence: Focuses on those who are new to program evaluation and provides tips on how to begin building evidence, different ways to evaluate a program, what tools to use when collecting data, and more
• Enhancing Community Evidence: Highlights enhancing community evidence using principle-based evaluation and cultural-specific principles, as well as how to create an evaluation plan
• Exploring Community Evidence: Focuses on the community-centered, evidence-based practice approach, which was designed to align the work of culturally specific, community-based work with community members
• Learning Community: Includes additional resources and an "Ask the Expert" feature that allows users to submit questions about program evaluation to Latino community-based practitioners

The toolkit also contains an introductory webinar hosted by Josie Serrata, Ph.D., assistant director of research, that explains the importance of documenting evidence in a culturally sensitive manner when evaluating programs, as well as a tour of the online toolkit.

The Building Evidence Toolkit is available at http://nationallatinonetwork.org/be-toolkit-home.
 

The National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth developed a brief for youth about to enter the workforce regarding the importance of managing money. The brief aims to help youth be financially capable through five actions:

• Earning—Describes how to better understand a paycheck, including an explanation of various deductions, such as income tax and Social Security 
• Saving and investing—Describes how to save using a bank account, how to choose a bank, and how much to save 
• Protecting—Describes ways to protect money, such as purchasing insurance and health-care coverage; how to avoid scams and identity theft; and how to manage credit 
• Spending—Describes ways to budget money, such as clipping coupons and comparing prices, especially for large purchases
• Borrowing—Describes different types of loans and explains the annual percentage rate

The brief also includes links to additional information from trustworthy sources, such as "Decoding Your Paycheck" from the U.S. Mint and "Paying Off Credit Cards" from MyCreditUnion.gov.

Taking Charge of Your Money: An Introduction to Financial Capability is available at http://www.ncwd-youth.info/sites/default/files/InfoBrief-43-Taking-Charge-of-Your-Money-An-Introduction-to-Financial-Capability.pdf (857 KB).
 

The Research and Training Center for Pathways to Positive Futures produced a guide to help service providers and others engage with youth. Based on Achieve My Plan (AMP), which is an intervention focused on improving self-determination, treatment satisfaction, and community participation outcomes among emerging adults with serious mental health concerns, AMP's Top Ten Tips for Engaging With Young People includes tips on how to ask questions and maintain a conversation while completing a worksheet or curriculum with the youth by adding reflections, asking follow-up questions, and using good body language.

AMP's Top Ten Tips for Engaging With Young People is available at https://www.pathwaysrtc.pdx.edu/pdf/proj-5-AMP-top-ten-tips-for-engaging-young-people.pdf (208 KB).
 

The National Child Welfare Workforce Institute's "Mind the Gap" webinar series focuses on strategies for workforce development in child welfare. "Mind the Gap #9: Achieving Racial Equity Through Workforce & Organizational Change" highlights the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) and its work to advance racial equality, equity, and justice in every level of the child welfare workforce, from conducting organizational assessments to training child welfare professionals.

To achieve better outcomes for young people of color in foster care, CSSP is working to implement an antiracist approach to training child welfare organizations and agencies to ensure they work to achieve racial equity within their organizations and implement systems that reduce disproportionality and disparity for children, youth, and families. 

CSSP suggests specific pathways to becoming an antiracist organization:

• Be prepared and competent when confronting and addressing inequities encountered in different areas of work
• Strengthen knowledge, skills, attitudes, and individual personal competence to address inequities based on race, both internally and through the organization's external work
• Explicitly promote racial equity in the organization's human resources department, management, and practices
• Acknowledge the impact of structural and institutional racism and confront explicit practices that treat people differently based on race

The webinar also includes a follow-up "learning exchange" based on methods and findings from the staff of Ramsey County Community Human Service Department in Minnesota. Ramsey County created the Ramsey County Antiracism Leadership Team in 2005 to direct the department's efforts to become a multicultural and antiracist organization and eliminate cultural and racial disparities within its service offerings. 

"Mind the Gap #9: Achieving Racial Equity Through Workforce & Organizational Change" and its accompanying "learning exchange" are available at http://ncwwi.org/index.php/link/275-mind-the-gap-9-achieving-racial-equity-through-workforce-organizational-change.
 

Upcoming national conferences on child welfare and adoption through April 2017 include:

March 2017

• 2017 National Conference on Bullying
  Florida Association of School Administrators & Florida Association of School Resource Officers
  March 1–3, Orlando, FL  
  http://www.schoolsafety911.org/event05.html
• 2017 BPD Annual Conference
  Association of Baccalaureate Social Work Program Directors, Inc. (BPD)
  March 1–5, New Orleans, LA
  https://bpdonline.org/BPDMEMBER/Annual_Conference/2017_Conference_Files/Conference_Home17.aspx
• 2017 AMCHP Annual Conference
  Association of Maternal & Child Health Programs (AMCHP)
  March 4–7, Kansas City, MO
  http://www.amchp.org/Calendar/Conferences/amchp-conference/Pages/default.aspx
• 30th Annual Research & Policy Conference on Child, Adolescent, and Young Adult Behavioral Health
  University of South Florida Department of Child & Family Studies
  March 5–8, Tampa, FL
  http://cmhconference.com
• 2017 Learning & Leadership Summit
  Prevent Child Abuse North Carolina
  March 8–9, Durham, NC
  https://www.preventchildabusenc.org/services/trainings-and-professional-development/upcoming-trainings/2017-learning-leadership-summit
• SAHM 2017 Annual Meeting
  "Cultivating Connections: The Importance of Relationships in Adolescent and Young Adult Health"
  Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine (SAHM)
  March 8–11, New Orleans, LA
  http://www.adolescenthealth.org/Meetings/2017-Annual-Meeting/Annual-Meeting-Home.aspx
• CWLA 2017 National Conference
  "Advancing Excellence in Practice and Policy: Highlighting Successful Strategies to Address the Needs of Children, Youth and Families"
  Child Welfare League of America (CWLA)
  March 29–31, Washington, DC
  http://www.cwla.org/success2017/

April 2017

• 2017 LEAD (Leadership. Evidence. Analysis. Debate.) Conference
  "Moving From Research to Policy and Practice to Improve the Lives of Youth"
  Center for Juvenile Justice Reform
  April 6–7, Washington, DC
  https://mccourt.georgetown.edu/events/lead-conference
• 2017 Conference: Building Bridges
  Indiana Adoptee Network
  April 21–22, Bloomington, IN
  http://indianaadopteenetwork.org/indiana-adoptee-network-spring-conference-2017
   

The Center for Juvenile Justice Reform has finalized its list of speakers for the 2017 LEAD Conference on April 6–7, 2017, at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. The conference, "Moving From Research to Policy and Practice to Improve the Lives of Youth,"  will feature several of the nation’s leading child welfare experts, including researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and youth/family voices, to discuss the most pressing issues in the field, such as promoting permanency and self-sufficiency for system-involved youth.