Supervising, Coaching and Accountability for CWS Supervisors

Level: Advanced Practice – Supervisor

Credits: 6

Intended Audience: New and experienced supervisors

Intended Objectives:

• Identify and enhance key processes, tools and practices that can be utilized by the supervisor with their unit workers towards improved intervention and decision making and in support of key outcomes
• Identify supervisory supports processes and tools that supervisors may utilize in assisting a worker with a complex child welfare cases.
• Demonstrate through the case consultation process, how to assess workers ability to articulate Safety, Risk, Protective Capacity and Minimum Sufficient Level of care in complex child welfare cases.
• Strengthen ability to diagnose key gaps in practice and develop plans for addressing these
• Demonstrate through the case consultation process, how to coach workers to better view, assess and articulate safety, risk, protective capacity factors and MSLC from a culturally competent perspective and better account for and address the unique cultural factors and norms of each child and family and the worker’s critical thinking process in a complex child welfare cases
• Demonstrate how to prepare workers to present cases in individual supervision and team meeting venues.

Topics Include:

• Identification of the roles the supervisor employs when consulting with workers on child welfare cases
• The supervisor’s use of various tools and processes in consultation with staff to ensure staff are able to articulate and document the decision points of: safety assessment, safety planning, risk assessment, case planning.
• The role of coaching staff in articulating safety and risk factors and subsequent decisions based on behaviors and evidence
• Addressing decision making points with the worker throughout the life of a case: identification and implementation of tools and processes
• Identification and application of case consultation skills
• The supervisor’s role in identifying worker’s training needs and preparing workers for training

CalSWEC Competencies Addressed:

2.2 Student is able to critically evaluate the relevance of commonly utilized assessment criteria and intervention models in terms of their usefulness with diverse ethnic and cultural populations.

3.2 Student demonstrates the ability to perform a preliminary safety assessment and to monitor the safety of the child through ongoing assessment of risk.

8.6 Student demonstrates knowledge of how organizational structure, climate, and culture affect service effectiveness, worker productivity and morale.

Essentials of Child Welfare Supervision Competencies Addressed:

• Be better able to clearly communicate performance expectations and standards to the staff you supervise and utilize factors that motivate staff towards improved job performance.
• Be able to develop specific unit level performance indicators tied to key outcomes and the means to track them.
• Create a learning environment focuses on the development/maintenance of competencies, professional judgment and sound decision making through strength-based supervision.
• Be better able to set specific performance expectations for the staff in the areas of assessment, case planning and intervention.
• Identify critical issues such as safety risk protective capacity in case supervision
• Strengthen the ability to oversee and develop the team-based skills of staff in the casework process through coaching and feedback.