Topics for Child Welfare Workers and Supervisors

Pre-Service training provides beginning knowledge and awareness of areas essential to child welfare practice, including knowledge of the scope and philosophical base of child welfare services, the basic process and functions of providing child welfare services, and an introduction to engagement, safety, court, and human behavior.

This is the pre-service training approved by the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families. This content meets the requirement for pre-service training identified in DCF 43 (see below for more details). These modules are intended to be used as one component of a new worker’s pre-service orientation package that should also include direct supervision, job shadowing, and other on the job training.

Case Worker Pre-Service

The web-based Foster Care Coordinator Pre-Service training is specifically for newly hired foster care coordinators in Wisconsin. It provides a high-level overview of your duties by explaining the process by which children are placed into out-of-home care; the role of the Foster Care Coordinator within a licensing agency and with families; and the licensing process, including documentation requirements. You should feel prepared to begin your work, with your supervisor’s support, until you can attend the DCF 56: New Licensor 2-day face-to-face training.

Foster Care Coordinator Pre-Service

Because of traumatic life experiences and early losses, many children who are adopted, in guardianship or in foster care experience elevated risks for developmental, health, emotional, and behavioral challenges. Therefore, this training was designed to help child welfare professionals better understand and address the mental health needs of children, youth and their families moving toward or having achieved permanency through adoption or guardianship.

Advancing Practice for Permanency and Well-Being

There’s been a lot of discussion about how Alternative Response, or AR, fits into CPS practice in Wisconsin. What is it? What isn’t it? What’s the same about practice and what’s different?

The purpose of this 2-module training is to provide CPS workers with a framework to understand where and how AR fits into practice. Participants will consider how to incorporate an Alternative Response approach in their work with families. The focus is on the core concepts of program, pathway, and practice.

While this orientation is intended to provide new information, it’s only the beginning of a conversation as counties kick off implementing Alternative Response.

Alternative Response Modules

Care4Kids program serves children placed in out-of-home care by one of six counties in the southeast region of the state: Kenosha, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Racine, Washington, and Waukesha counties. In these three modules, participating county staff will learn:

• The need for and benefits of the Care4Kids program.
• The responsibilities of the Heath Care Coordination team and its members.
• How the enrollment specialist determines eligibility for Care4Kids.
• The role of the caseworker in participating in the team.

Care4Kids Program Overview

The Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) Tool is an assessment strategy designed for decision support and outcomes management. Individuals who complete or rate a CANS are required to be trained and certified in its use. Click below to access more information about the CANS Tool Training and Certification Exam.

CANS Modules

Children with disabilities are an especially vulnerable group within those children and youth who are at risk for maltreatment. In this web-based training the benefits to early identification of disabilities and potential risk factors for parents and children are explored, and the importance of collaboration with partners and connection to resources is stressed.

Child Welfare Considerations for Children with Disabilities

This course provides a brief overview of federal civil rights laws as they pertain to program delivery and the laws that govern civil rights protections using daily practice examples that child protective services, foster care, and youth justice professionals are likely to encounter. In addition, the complaint process and the rights of service recipients to make complaints at the agency, state, and federal levels are explained.

Civil Rights

Part of the child welfare responsibility assumed when placing a child in out-of-home care is to assure that the placement is safe for this child at this point in time. Child Protective Services, Child Welfare, and Youth Justice professionals are required to complete Confirming Safe Environments (CSE) training to address that responsibility.

As the Foster Care Coordinator, you may or may not be responsible for this function. You should consult with your supervisor. However, it is recommended to complete this training to gain an understanding of the tool because foster parents will be a subject assessment.

The web based Confirming Safe Environments training content can be accessed through our website and PDS Online.

CSE Modules

The eWiSACWIS Web-Based Modules support the workforce in their use of eWiSACWIS, which is the title of Wisconsin’s SACWIS (Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information System) application. A SACWIS is a comprehensive, automated case management tool that supports child welfare practice, holds a state’s official case record, and supports the reporting of the data.

eWiSACWIS Modules

Children in out-of-home care are particularly vulnerable to identity theft because their personal information is frequently shared with multiple agencies, caretakers and individuals, making it less protected and more accessible.
The Federal Child and Family Services Improvement Act followed by the Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act require all children in out-of-home care are required to have an annual credit check and mandate a remediate process, as needed. The purpose of this training is to inform case workers of their role in keeping youth identities safe and correctly documenting remediation efforts.

This training can be access through our website or in PDS Online.

Keeping Kids Safe from Identify Theft Modules

For generations, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and siblings have cared for and supported for their young relatives. Families often plan for and adapt to parental absences, such as deployments, illnesses, or lengthy work-related travel. And in times of crisis, when a child’s environment is unsafe, or their parent is unable to provide full-time care and stability, relatives step up to care for the children in their family.

Wisconsin is a national leader in relative placements. Our child welfare system believes when a child is unsafe and out-of-home care is necessary, placement with relatives is best practice. It provides unique benefits, lessens the negative effects, and promotes a child’s permanency and well being

Kinship Navigator Modules

Quality contacts between a caseworker and the children and parents they serve are the cornerstone of effective child welfare practice. Quality contacts assess safety and permanency and promote child and family well-being.

Meaningful Casework Through Quality Caseworker Contacts

It’s the responsibility of all involved in the child welfare and youth justice system to promote normalcy for all children and youth living in out-of-home care. Therefore, role specific training has been developed to support your work with children, youth and out-of-home care providers.

The Reasonable and Prudent Parent Standard

Subsidized Guardianship is a permanency option that transfers legal authority to a relative or like-kin guardian without terminating parental rights and allows the guardian to continue receiving a monthly subsidy.

This training will review the eligibility requirements for the Subsidized Guardianship, creation and maintenance of a Subsidized Guardianship agreement, and documentation requirements.

This training can be access through our website.

Subsidized Guardianship Training

This web-based training provides child welfare professionals with an understanding of substance use and how to recognize the effects of parental substance use on children and families. Additionally, it focuses on the importance of partnering and collaboration in order to achieve successful outcomes for children and families.

Substance Use in Child Welfare

Quality contacts between a caseworker and the children and parents they serve are the cornerstone of effective child welfare practice. Quality contacts assess safety and permanency and promote child and family well-being.

Supervisory Support of Quality Caseworker Contacts

The Chafee Foster Care Independence Program (CFCIP) requires that those serving youth in out-of-home care:

• Help youth make the transition to self-sufficiency through needed services;
• Help youth receive the education, training and services necessary to obtain employment;
• Provide personal and emotional support to those aging out of care;
• Help youth prepare for and enter postsecondary training and education institutions;
• Provide financial assistance for housing, counseling, health, transportation, employment and education to youth ages 18-21;
• Make available vouchers for postsecondary education and training (Education and Training Vouchers)

This training provides an overview of Wisconsin’s independent living regional model, clarifies roles and responsibilities of those supporting youth in transition, and provides recommendations and resources for effective partnerships.

Transition to Adulthood

Sex trafficking of children and youth is a growing concern nationally and in Wisconsin. Sex trafficking of minors has been identified, investigated and charged in most, if not all, counties within Wisconsin. It is both an urban and rural issue.

This course is designed to provide crucial information to child welfare workers to support the identification of and responses to instances of child sex trafficking.

Understanding Child Sex Trafficking Modules