Episode 56: Prevention Training for Home Visitors

"When you enter the field, you're going to have great strengths, but it also means you're going to have gaps. And so how do we address those gaps without making everyone sit through the same training and so I'm not waiting 50 minutes of every hour on training I already know?"
-Janet Horras, State home visiting director, Iowa Department of Public Health

Child welfare agencies continue to seek effective, affordable, and time-saving professional development for caseworkers. This episode features the Institute for the Advancement of Family Support Professionals, a collaboration between State agencies, universities, and home visiting organizations that offers 66 e-learning modules supporting the National Family Support Competency Framework. The framework is a shared model of competencies and skills common across home visiting and child welfare professionals.

Child welfare supervisors and trainers can create individualized online learning plans to help build specific skills and competencies for their staff. Many of the trainings are transferrable to child welfare and prevention-related practice.

The following individuals are featured in this episode:

• Laurel Aparicio, director, Early Impact Virginia
• Janet Horras, State home visitation director, Iowa Department of Public Health

Topics discussed include the following:

• The connection between the Institute and the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting program
• The common need that brought human service agencies, foundations, and organizations from Iowa and Virginia together to create the Institute
• How supervisors and training professionals can ensure participants build skills instead of merely passing tests
• How trainings within the Institute are developed and evaluated
• Certifications and CEUs offered by the Institute