At Risk Infants and Children: What a Social Worker Needs to Know

Credits: 6

Intended Audience: Child Welfare Workers and Supervisors

Description of Course: This six hour interactive training will review essential knowledge that a social worker needs to know when observing and/or assessing an infant during a home visit or office visitation. The training will focus on normal growth and development, what to look for and how to document, emotional health, adult and child interactions and safety issues in the home. In addition, infants exposed to drugs and alcohol and the differences between the effects of stimulants vs depressants will be explored. Discussion will focus on what it looks like when things working well and what and when to know when there are worries. Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder will be a focus of this presentation. Through the use of scenarios, small group activities and videos, attendees will understand effective home visit essentials, concise and meaningful documentation, effective intervention techniques for drug and alcohol exposed infants and children and how self regulation plays an important role in the lives of infants and children.

Intended Objectives:

Identify key factors in assessment of normal growth and developmental milestones, including gross and fine motor skills, language development and emotional mental health and attachment
Describe how in-utero exposure to drugs and alcohol affect normal growth and development
List intervention techniques for infants and children with issues of self-regulation
Understand the importance of asking the right questions to obtain information on feeding and sleeping patterns and other daily activities.
Identify what indicates a safe environment and when an environment is unsafe
Practice asking questions that will elicit the information necessary to make assessment
Identify healthy attachment and what contributes to healthy emotional development.

Topics Include:

Drug and alcohol exposure in-utero and outcomes for infants and children
The effects of trauma on infant mental health
Healthy safe environments
Asking the right questions to understand the essential information needed for assessment of normal infant growth and development
Documentation that reflects essential information that is factual and concise
Interventions for infants and children who have been exposed to drugs and alcohol
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder