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Vol.
27, No. 1
January 2024
Creating a Standard for Engaging Families
Engagement is a pillar for our work with children and families. It begins with our first meeting and continues throughout a family's journey through child welfare. How well we are able to respond to their needs depends largely on how well we engage them.
How do we assess whether our engagement is effective? Let's discuss how the statewide implementation of the practice standard, "Engaging" is being integrated from the state and local perspective, including how one county is planning to use the practice standards in performance evaluations.
NC Division of Social Services Perspective
Tracey Brenneman
An interview with 32-year child welfare veteran, Tracey Brenneman, Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) Technical Assistance Trainer with the NC Division of Social Services, highlights the work to support counties in addressing areas needing improvement. When asked how counties are implementing the Engaging practice standard, Ms. Brenneman shared a few key insights.
1. Integrate practice standards into the work already being done. For example, a supervisor can include the Engaging standard in existing staffing tools. They can talk to their staff about the standards during staffings and remind them to take their time to fully assess the family's strengths and needs before making decisions.
2. Continue using practice standards as a team-building tool. Integrating practice standards is not a solo task. Promoting accountability and building confidence in the use of engagement can be achieved by learning more about and using the standards in different settings. To engage staff, program managers may wish to highlight one standard during each unit meeting. They could discuss what that standard would look like if upheld and determine strategies to embrace it.
3. Model engagement in our work with each other. Using engagement with staff and colleagues offers us a rich opportunity to practice the skills we will be using with our families. Supervisors who effectively demonstrate engagement with their staff spend time with their workers in the field and demonstrate in their interactions with families and staff what good engagement looks like. When they display effective engagement, managers communicate the expectations and information workers need to feel empowered and supported.
While Ms. Brenneman noted obstacles to engagement such as time limitations, high turnover, and high caseloads, she reminded us that these challenges are not unique to North Carolina. Despite the barriers, there are strategies counties can use to fulfill the practice standard of Engaging better.
"Go out with your workers," Brenneman urged supervisors. "Watch them, model for them, and debrief with them to coach them in better engagement practices - what you say, how you say it, etc. In the training CPS Assessments, we talk about engaging families through the skills of 'crucial conversations,' which means you start with the part you can control, yourself! You focus on the outcome you desire, which is that families trust you and are willing to partner with you to keep children safe. This only happens if you focus on those engagement skills."
Durham County DSS Perspective
In an interview with Lashonda Bacote, Durham County DSS's Quality Assurance and Training (QAT) Social Worker, an 11-year child welfare veteran and former CPS Supervisor, she shared how her agency is integrating the practice standard Engaging into their work and specifically in employee performance evaluations.
Lashonda Bacote
Durham DSS began the process of integrating the practice standards into work plans in July 2023. Workgroups comprised of child welfare program managers, supervisors, and QAT staff support this huge undertaking. When it has been fully revised, the performance evaluation process will include a 360-degree evaluation, meaning staff will evaluate themselves and their supervisor and the customers will evaluate their experience with staff. It will also employ a client satisfaction survey to help evaluate practice standards implementation. Durham DSS is working to integrate these elements into performance evaluations by November 2024.
While Durham DSS integrates the practice standards in performance evaluations, their QAT department continues to assess their use of the practice standards in their quality control (QC) reviews.
Durham captures the Engaging standard as an outcome rated on the QC evaluation tool. For example, the tool assesses engagement by tracking whether caseworkers document invitations sent to all relevant family members for child and family team (CFT) meetings. The tool also tracks whether caseworkers are using safety circles/safety networks with the family throughout the life of the case.
Interactions between the supervisor and child welfare worker can also demonstrate the integration of the Engaging practice standard. QAT determines whether the supervisor and worker are prepared in advance of their individual staffings by identifying whether notes are prepared before the meeting and/or the Case Conference tool was used to measure expected behaviors. Engagement between supervisors and workers should mirror the engagement workers have with families.
Social work entails gathering a lot of qualitative data. To assess this data, supervisors must go on visits with their workers and see the interactions between workers and families. During these visits, supervisors can observe how workers interact with families, whether workers consider family cultural differences, and how they prepare to engage with families.
QAT also evaluates the use of required forms. For example, completing the Monthly Permanency Planning Contact Record assists with the implementation of the practice standards. QAT educates staff to use forms as a tool to guide practice and ensure that workers are consistent and remain on track.
Asked what she would like child welfare workers and supervisors to know or be able to do after they read this article, Ms. Bacote replied, "We have to practice what we want our workers to practice. We have to engage and demonstrate intentionality in implementing practice standards in our daily work. This starts by making staff aware of the standards, so they are not a surprise. Give them meaning so that it's not added work. It's already what they do... not a new way but an improved way of working with our families."
For more information about NC's Practice Standards, click HERE