Casework Processes/Worker Skills

The family-centered practitioner assists the family in achieving the goals and objectives of its service plan through a range of casework activities, using diverse knowledge and multiple skills to:

• Assist the family with practical needs such as food, housing, and income support
• Provide information on child development and parenting, as well as direct assistance such as counseling and family mediation
• Help build parenting and daily living skills
• Assist the parent in building supportive connections with other parents, extended family, and community groups
• Conduct family meetings

ASFA Supervisor-Team Training: Solution-Based Supervisory Practice for Achieving Outcomes in Child Welfare (PDF - 557 KB)
Barbee, Martin, Antle, & Christensen (2003)
Describes a curriculum for providing ongoing, intensive training to supervisors and their teams to improve daily casework practice skills in the areas of family assessment, case planning, and case monitoring.

Building Solution-Focused Partnerships in Children's Protective and Family Services
Berg & De Jong
Protecting Children, 19(2), 2004
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Summarizes the nature of solution-focused practice, a promising contributor to partnership-based practice that assists professionals in forging cooperative relationships with consumers who are invited to create solutions.

The Casework Process
Comstock & McDaniel (2004, 2nd ed.)
In Helping in Child Protective Services: A Competency-Based Casework Handbook
View Abstract
Describes all the components of casework and the multiple roles that professionals play as they collaborate with related agencies, family members, and the court system. The requirements of law and policy are explained.

Child Welfare Caseworker Visits with Children and Parents
National Conference of State Legislatures (2006)
Presents background information about caseworker visits, including the elements that comprise quality visits. Also offers questions that legislators and their staff can use to facilitate a dialogue about caseworker visits with their child welfare agency administrators. (PDF - 348 KB)

Child Welfare Training Toolkit: Helping Child Welfare Workers Support Families With Substance Use, Mental, and Co-Occurring Disorders
National Center on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare
Provides learning opportunities and baseline knowledge on substance abuse and mental health problems among families involved in the child welfare system; motivates and facilitates cross-systems work; and incorporates cultural awareness and competency in child welfare practice.

Core Competencies in the Field of Family Support: Essential Knowledge and Skills for Parent Educators, Home Visitors, and Other Professionals Who Work with Families
Wisconsin Children's Trust Fund (2004)
Identifies specific skills and levels of knowledge for all family support workers and advanced workers, as well as suggested topics for continued learning.

Empowerment Skills for Family Workers Instructor's Manual
Palmer-House & Forest (2003)
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Provides course outlines and instructions for implementing the Empowerment Skills for Family Workers curriculum for social workers and other professionals who serve families.

Empowerment Skills for Family Workers: A Worker Handbook
Forest (2003)
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Describes practice strategies for implementing the family development approach.

Expanding the Family Circle
University at Albany, School of Social Welfare
Teaches a framework for the experienced caseworker to integrate a culturally competent family-centered approach to casework practice. The training offers skills and strategies for working with all members of a family system and includes a curriculum, activities, trainer's manual, and participant workbook.

Family-Centered, Neighborhood-Based Services: Performance-Based Behaviors for the Child Welfare Practitioner and Community Providers (PDF - 121 KB)
Public Children Services Association of Ohio (2003)
Designed to assist Ohio counties with implementation of family-centered, neighborhood-based child protection services (CPS). Lists specific performance-based behaviors in different areas of CPS that reflect a family-centered, neighborhood-based approach.

Guiding Principles and Practices for Delivery of Family Centered Services (PDF - 27 KB)
Iowa's Early ACCESS & Project SCRIPT (2000)
Seven principles of family-centered services selected to guide programs delivering services, with examples of practice behaviors for staff.

Handbook of Community Practice
Weil & Reisch (2005)
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Examines the range of practice methods focused on community interventions; considers trends that are changing the context of practice; and analyzes the ways in which knowledge, methodology, and research can provide direction and inform leaders and practitioners of ways to strengthen communities and service systems.

Helping in Child Protective Services: A Competency-Based Casework Handbook
Brittain & Hunt (2004, 2nd ed.)
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Describes all aspects of the casework process, from intake through case termination.

The Indian Child Welfare Act: You Must Understand Why
Graves (2005)
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Collection of tutorials that examines the rationale for the Indian Child Welfare Act and recommends specific practices to support its implementation. Written for non-Native professionals, the modules address the importance of compliance with the Indian Child Welfare Act, Native American identities and values, relationships between tribes and the United States government, and jurisdictional issues.

Meth and Family-Centered Child Welfare Practice
Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare, University of North Carolina
Practice Notes, 10(2), 2005
Describes the impact of family methamphetamine use and production on children. The articles review risk factors for child maltreatment and suggest techniques for helping families. (PDF - 287 KB)

Promoting Child Welfare: Training Professionals to Support Healthy Marriages, Relationships and Families
Syracuse University College of Human Services and Health Professions (2005)
Includes tools and exercises to help professionals develop effective communication and conflict resolution skills and learn how to develop these skills in consumers.

Relationship-Based Practice and Reflective Practice: Holistic Approaches to Contemporary Child Care Social Work.
Ruch
Child and Family Social Work, 10(2), 2005
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An outline of contemporary understandings of relationship-based and reflective practice, as well as findings from doctoral research to identify how reflective practice complements relationship-based practice.

SCARF: Supporting Children and Responding to Families: A Family Casework Model With Client and Worker Friendly Assessment, Planning and Review Tools
Tolley
Child Abuse Prevention Newsletter, 13(2), 2005
Highlights a casework model designed for services assisting vulnerable families and children in Australia. The model is based on ecological theory, which suggests that individuals are connected to and interact with the environment in which they live. (PDF - 96 KB)

Social Work Practice with Children (PDF - 259 KB)
Webb (2003)
Text for social work students reviews practice strategies for contemporary family problems such as homelessness, family violence, foster care, divorce, and substance abuse. The techniques encourage consideration of the environments in which children live.

Social Work Practice with Children and Families: A Family Health Approach
Yuen (2005)
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Focuses on nurturing the family unit based on systems theory, ecological concepts, and the principles of individual and family development. The interdisciplinary approach uses techniques such as reliance on formal and informal resources, confrontive strategies, social advocacy, psychoeducation, and prevention.

Tough Problems, Tough Choices: Guidelines for Needs-Based Service Planning in Child Welfare
Feild & Winterfeld (2003)
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Intended to assist child welfare caseworkers in making decisions about the development of service or case plans and the delivery of child welfare services.