Definition
Training and development refers to the practice of providing training, workshops, coaching, mentoring, or other learning opportunities to employees to inspire, challenge, and motivate them to perform the functions of their position to the best of their ability and within standards set by local, state, Tribal, Federal and licensing organization guidelines. Training and development activities provide all involved system of care parties with the tools they need to develop professionally, increase their knowledge, effectively work with families, and build their capacity to perform the tasks associated with their positions within the system of care.
Since a system of care operates within an existing human service agency, it is expected that most human resource issues, such as hiring, benefits, staff recognition, and performance appraisal issues, would be handled within the agency’s human resources department. It would be important to make sure that system of care principles are infused into the day to day practices of human resources personnel. It is worth noting that many systems of care have developed recognition and award programs for individuals who have exceeded expectations in their system of care efforts.
Why Use a Training, Development and Human Resources Toolkit?
A system of care training and development agenda necessarily will have to involve families, community agencies, the faith community and other community partners. It will have to look at the various needs and requirements of all stakeholders involved. Some of these factors can be addressed through specific agency trainings, but in many cases new methods of training will have to be developed that go beyond any one agency’s agenda or curriculum. For example, training may need to be created that addresses the family involvement aspect of a child and family team meeting.
In today’s social media driven world the way in which training can be delivered is much more varied than in the past. For example, Webcasts, Webinars, and computer-based trainings are the order of the day to ensure maximum participation in a cost effective manner. Another aspect of a modern training and development effort within a systems of care is that of ensuring that all events give participants the ability to evaluate and offer feedback. Data is then analyzed and, if necessary, future training and development activities are modified, enhanced, or eliminated. A number of evaluation forms are listed as resources in the Continuous Quality Improvement Section of this toolkit.
Moving from a traditional training program that is focused on the employees of one agency to a more dynamic interagency and family involved training program can be challenging. A system of care requires reevaluation of how to go about building a training and development program that is open to all involved partners. With one of the systems of care focuses being on family and youth involvement, your local system must think about new presenters and co-presenters, assuring cultural diversity in your presenters and cultural competence in your presentations. Inevitably you will have to look at policies that prevent interagency partners from participating in more department focused trainings and look to find solutions to those issues. This toolkit will provide you with some answers to these difficult issues as you begin to build your system of care training and development program into the daily operations of your work.
Systems of Care Principles and Values
The following are just a few ways systems of care principles and values might be evident in training, development, and human resources in your community:
- Staff members of systems of care agencies and organizations regard children, youth, and families as priorities within the community.
- For certain positions within systems of care, life experience is considered equal to, or in some cases more important than, a degree or other credentials.
- Outcomes are developed that measure and identify changes generated from systems of care principles into training, development, and human resources functions.
- A culturally, linguistically, and ethnically diverse and competent staff is evident in training, development and human resources activities.
- Family and youth involvement is evident in positions (employees or contractors) within the system of care.
- An interagency training and development committee with family membership creates a cross-agency training and development agenda to address system of care personnel needs.
- Ongoing training and development occurs across all systems of care partners to enhance performance of interagency teams.
Goals
Training and Development
Create a continuous learning environment throughout the life of your system of care that encompasses all levels of personnel involved including: biological, foster, and adoptive parents; youth; parent partners; service providers; front-line interagency agency staff; and high level administrative positions.
- Consistently reach out to all stakeholder groups through needs assessments to gauge the training and development needed to aid further knowledge acquisition.
- Create, if not already doing so, training and development opportunities across agencies and departments, to other stakeholder groups, and to families, youth, and other community partners.
- Ensure that the latest evidence-based practices are incorporated into all training and development activities.
- Ensure interagency teams with family representation are utilized to complete tasks associated with systems of care.
- Develop a reward structure for employees and/or contractors who demonstrate an adherence to systems of care principles.
- Staff involved in your system of care should have their performance appraisals in part be based on system of care principles.
- Ensure that policies related to your system of care encourage and promote training and development for all people involved in your system of care.
Human Resources
- Develop performance appraisal systems that support systems of care principles.
- Hire, promote, and retain culturally, linguistically, and ethnically diverse individuals consistent with the cultural and ethnic makeup of the involved community.
- Hire systems of care staff in a timely fashion.
- Incorporate systems of care principles into job descriptions and consultant contracts.
- Hire as employees or consultants, where possible and appropriate, qualified youth and family members who have been service recipients.
- Develop consistent personnel practices across agencies involved in systems of care.
- Consistently and adequately fill administrative and program positions responsible for performing activities within the system of care.
- Develop a performance system that is quantifiable, includes system of care principles, and accounts for continuous professional development.
- Use a strength-based, positive performance approach to affect recruitment, hiring, retention, supervision, and professional development.
As your system of care is emerging, an important early task is to assemble a group of individuals who represent all of the stakeholder groups who will be either providing or receiving services and supports. If there are existing training coordinators within the agency or department, their involvement would be very helpful. It also is very important to understand the current training and development goals for each department/agency, the schedule of when training and development activities normally occur, and the format and kinds of trainings and development activities that occur. It is essential to begin to understand the kinds of training and development activities offered by each agency/department and also how those trainings are funded, as well as any limitations for involvement in particular training and development programs.
Activities, Questions to Consider
Training, development, and human resources pre-planning activities and tasks in your community might include:
- Inviting and encouraging training, development, and human resources professionals to be involved in planning and implementation of your system of care.
- Identifying and assessing additional or existing human resources where system of care values and principle should be incorporated.
- Researching other training, development and human resource efforts in systems of care.
- Looking at the quality, quantity, formatting and range of training and development opportunities currently available within your community.
- Do your current training and development programs encompass pre-service and in-service opportunities?
- Are you using a variety of training and development methods to reach various audiences?
- Do you currently have the capability to do Webinars, on-line courses, and Webcasts?
Key Partners
The people who perform training, development, and human resources duties in your community might include:
- System of care director
- Cross-agency training and development coordinator
- Support staff
- Family members, faith-based community, community organizations, and non-profits
- Consultant pool
- Existing human resources staff in partner agencies and departments
- Evaluation team members
- Existing child welfare training, development, and human resources staff
- Agency training and development personnel
- Agency and Division administrative staff
- Information Technology staff
Sustainability
- Be as inclusive as possible in identifying members on your training and development committee.
- Identify potential solutions to various restrictions of training and development funds.
- Develop a plan that will query staff of various agencies for their training and development needs and resources.
- Make sure to have youth and families are part of this work from the beginning.
- Research other system of care training and development programs to see how they gather information, the kinds of trainings they offer, and how they market the training and development offerings to staff and families.
- Gather system of care position descriptions and personnel policies from existing systems of care within your state and around the country.
Resources
Pennsylvania – Assessment Tool (PDF - 57 KB)
This is an 11 page needs assessment form that covers all aspects of a system of care. Overarching categories include: System Access/Intake, Strengths/Needs Assessment, Service Planning, Service Delivery, Service Monitoring and Evaluation, Exit/Discharge and Prioritizing Improvements and Alternatives. System of Care principles and values are listed within each of those headings. The result is a comprehensive look at all aspects of a system of care in order to define and prioritize where staff development activities need to occur.
North Dakota – Foster Parent Training (PDF - 56 KB)
This one page survey of training needs for community members and foster care parents lists out a number of training topics and prioritizes the needs of both groups based on responses received.
This phase is marked by having a formal training and development interagency committee with family and community membership. One of its first tasks, besides having a full understanding of your system of care values and principles, is to begin to understand the gaps in knowledge across the system of care, in the community, and with involved families. Needs assessment surveys, interviews, and reviewing past training and development practices can all be helpful in understanding the wishes of system of care personnel and families in terms of required information. This task needs to be done on an annual basis. Understanding your funding parameters while seeking finances to expand and stabilize your training and development efforts are also very important tasks.
Activities, Questions to Consider
Training, development, and human resources planning activities and tasks in your community might include:
- Establishing an interagency training and development committee with family involvement.
- Is there a training and development committee that features interagency, family, and community involvement?
- Developing job descriptions and performance evaluations that incorporate systems of care principles, values, and expectations.
- Are there jobs that no longer are necessary given the development of your community-based system of care? For example, the job of developing contracts with out of state residential treatment centers may now be converted to developing contracts with local providers to deliver home and community-based services and support.
- Surveying service providers, direct services staff, families (biological, adoptive, kin and foster), supervisors, management, and leadership to determine their training and development needs.
- How do you prioritize and thus target the training and development needs of various stakeholder groups?
- Developing a training and development calendar, accessible to the community and all interested parties.
- Has a training and development calendar been developed based on needs of personnel providing services and support to the population of focus?
- Developing mechanisms for interagency training and development activities.
- Collaborating with universities and training centers.
- Establishing a yearly staff development plan.
- Research existing system of care award programs from other system of care communities with an eye toward developing your own program.
- Developing systems of care training and development centers.
- Assessing current training and development curriculum for system of care values and principles
- Allocating funds from your overall existing agency training and development budgets for system of care training and development needs.
- Identifying ways, both internally and externally, to expand the training and development budget.
- Are you partnering with community-based and non-profit organizations as a way to fund and support system of care training and development opportunities?
Key Partners
The people who perform training, development, and human resources duties in your community might include:
- System of care director
- Cross-agency training and development coordinator
- Support staff
- Family members, faith-based community, community organizations, and non-profit
- Consultant pool
- Existing human resources staff in partner agencies and departments
- Existing child welfare training, development, and human resources staff
- Agency training and development personnel
- Evaluation team members
Sustainability
- Create a training and development plan of action that will address what new services are being offered in any given year.
- Query staff of all involved agencies about training and development needs.
- Query families involved in your system of care about their training and development needs
- Query family members for what they see practitioners need for further training and development.
- Visit meetings where providers of specific services gather to find out their particular training and development needs. For example, a meeting of crisis respite care providers will quickly be able to tell you what training and development needs that they have.
- Look to see where federal or other sources of funds can be used to pay for training and development efforts.
- Resolve any restrictions limiting participants attending any particular training and development event.
- Ongoing review and assessment of training and development curriculum.
Resources
Kansas – Cultural Competence Training Agenda (PDF - 16 KB)
This is a brief outline of 3 day training on developing cultural competence. The seven modules include: Self-discovery, Needs Assessment, Capacity Building, Strategic Planning, Implementation, Monitoring, Evaluation & Dissemination, and Sustainability.
Contra Costa County, California – Cultural Competency Project (PDF - 27 KB)
This is a short 1 page report that outlines the keys to successfully implementing a comprehensive training program on cultural competence. It also shows the titles of the various trainings on cultural competence offered.
Contra Costa County, California – Parent Partner Training (PDF - 35 KB)
This is a 1 page piece listing the training topics to be covered, dates and times for new parent partner staff.
System of Care Promising Practice Monograph, Training Strategies for Serving Children with Serious Emotional Disturbance and Their Families in a System of Care
This 128 page monograph details how trainings must keep up with service and practice changes in the field, the core elements and essential practices in the field, processes and practice of effective training, and a number of system of care examples of training programs. Also interspersed throughout the document are statements from people in communities about what is necessary for a successful training program.
New York – Undoing Racism Workshop (PDF - 21 KB)
This is a 2 page description of the 2.5 day Undoing Racism workshop including a set of anticipated outcomes.
Oregon – Parent Mentor Boundaries (PDF - 52 KB)
This is a 3 page workshop outline detailing: the Guiding Principles of Parent Mentors, General Expectations, Contacts with Mentees, Transportation and Paperwork Expectations of the position.
Contra Costa County, California – Parent Partner Interview Questions (PDF - 24 KB)
This is a 3 page set of questions for the Coordinator of the Parent Partner Program when interviewing parents for the Parent Partner Program. Under each question is a set of responses that will help the interviewer identify the stronger candidates for the Parent Partner position.
JOB DESCRIPTIONS
Contra Costa County, California – Parent Partner Job Description (PDF - 22 KB)
This is a 2 page Parent Partner job description that includes general duties, responsibilities, qualifications and Parent Advocate and Parent Leader responsibilities as well.
Jefferson County, Colorado – Family Mentor Job Description (PDF - 21 KB)
This 1 page job description highlights the goal, role, responsibilities, qualifications, time commitment, supervision/training and benefits.
Jefferson County, Colorado – Outreach Coordinator Job Description (PDF - 17 KB)
This 1 page job description highlights the goal, role, responsibilities, qualifications, time commitment, supervision/training and benefits.
Nevada – Kinship Liaison Job Description (PDF - 24 KB)
This 1 page job description details the position qualifications, necessary knowledge base, role of the caregiver advocate, interpersonal skills needed, and services offered by kinship care givers.
North Carolina – Manager Job Description (PDF - 30 KB)
This 2 page job description addresses the necessary qualifications, job goal, and performance responsibilities including leadership, strategic development, customer focus, information, analysis and evaluation, human resources, process management, and results.
Oregon – Parent Leader Position Description (PDF - 20 KB)
This 2 page position description lists duties and responsibilities, purpose, and education and experience requirements.
Oregon – Parent Mentor Job Description (PDF - 17 KB)
This is a 1 page job description outline that lists the position overview and summary, knowledge, skills, and abilities required and other requirements of the position including a background check.
Pennsylvania – Project Manager Job Description (PDF - 31 KB)
This is a 4 page job description detailing the position purpose, system of care overview, description of duties, decision making authority and essential functions.
Initiating your training and development program is a big step forward in moving your system of care towards a continuous learning community environment. Some key early implementation components include: proper marketing of the training and development program; lining up appropriate speakers who represent the diversity of your community; making sure that the proper partnering between family trainers and professionals is occurring; and evaluating each training opportunity, Beyond the training and development events themselves, the training and development committee must consider such variables as when, where, and how events will be delivered to assure maximum involvement by those system of care stakeholders who need the trainings and development activities.
Activities, Questions to Consider
Training, development, and human resources implementation activities and tasks in your community might include:
- Conducting training and workforce development activities.
- Are trainings and development opportunities open to all interagency partners, youth, and families?
- Will you be able to provide coaching and mentoring of training participants beyond the actual training?
- Does your training and development program include pre-service, in-service, Continuous Education Units, conferences, workshops, and seminars
- Are all trainings and development activities evaluated with an eye toward continuous quality improvement?
- Conducting leadership development activities.
- Will system of care personnel have coaching and mentoring opportunities?
- Conducting cultural competence training and development activities.
- Has systems of care personnel been trained in cultural competence?
- Include a variety of cost effective training offerings including: Webcasts, Webinars, and computer-based trainings in order to ensure maximum participation.
- Having human resource professionals offer periodic seminars to systems of care personnel and vice versa.
- Are new members of child and family teams routinely trained in systems of care policies and procedures?
- Teaching systems of care in institutions of higher education in social work, psychiatry, psychology, and education programs.
- Are families being asked to co-lead these classes?
- Coordinating training and development activities for multiple agencies.
- Rewarding and recognizing staff for work performance that is consistent with systems of care principles.
- Do you regularly recognize personnel for performance above and beyond the call of duty in your system of care at meetings, system of care newsletters?
- Coordinating training resources (revenue and staff) among systems of care partners.
Key Partners
The people who perform training, development, and human resources duties in your community might include:
- Evaluation team members
- Cross-agency training and development coordinator
- Support staff
- Family members, faith-based community, community organizations, and non-profits
- Consultant pool
- Existing human resources staff in partner agencies and departments
- Existing child welfare training, development, and human resources staff
- Agency training and development personnel
- Information Technology staff
Sustainability
- Involve human resources staff in the operation of your system of care so they can articulate the benefits of various system of care created positions to senior level management in order to increase the chances of position funding being moved from “soft funds” to state, county, city, or Tribal funds.
- Show the benefits of a robust training program in order to have it be supported by federal, state, county, city, or Tribal funds.
- Evaluate all training programs in terms of the content, speakers, and relevance to the participants work in order to build a “world class” training program.
- Regularly gauge the needs of various systems of care stakeholder groups in order to keep the training program current and relevant.
- Always reexamine at curriculum to insure that you are infusing the latest evidence-based practices into your presentations.
- Use local experts when available as presenters. Using your local “stars” not only gives recognition to those who are doing excellent work but helps create in-state boosters for your training efforts.
- Use a variety of knowledge transfer methods to create a learning community within your system of care including: coaching, mentoring, brown bag lunches, and periodic list serve articles to all involved system of care staff.
Resources
Nevada – Case Manager Training Facilitator (PDF - 168 KB)
This is a 31 page comprehensive facilitator’s guide for training case managers on how to implement a child and family team with fidelity. The agenda for the training along with a description of what is a child and family team, why a child and family team is important, how a child and family team is composed and delivered. Also included are various forms and guidelines in administering a child and family team process.
Nevada – Case Manager Training Participant (PDF - 150 KB)
This is a 29 page companion guide for case managers attending the Child and Family Team training. Areas covered include: Welcome and Introductions, Outline and Purpose of Workshop, Discussion of Assessment and Case Planning in Case Management, Individualized Course of Action/Research, Nevada/Clark County Department of Family Services Case Planning Policy, Department of Family Services Case Planning and Child and Family Team Meetings, Outline of Child & Family Team Process/Some Effective Planning Ideas for Child and Family Team Meetings, Sample Forms, Guidelines and Documents.
Kansas – PALS Training Curriculum (PDF - 489 KB)
This is a comprehensive training curriculum (18 pages) facilitated by a family member and child welfare practitioner. The goal of this training is to highlight the principles of a system of care while heightening the awareness of the participants to such things as labels, culture and partnerships between families and practitioners in child welfare.
Jefferson County, Colorado – Child Welfare Training Presentation (PDF - 722 KB)
This is a comprehensive set of 47 power point slides that outline the mission, goal and responsibilities of the child welfare system in Jefferson County, Colorado. The presentation was presented by a parent partner and training coordinator for the County child Welfare Department.
Jefferson County, Colorado – KidzNightOut Volunteer Training (PDF - 24 KB)
This training is for volunteers who will be with children so that their parents can have a few hours of respite. The training outline includes: A description of the program, Goals, Volunteers needed, Confidentiality, Safety Issues, Leadership and Questions or Concerns.
Jefferson County, Colorado – Public Speaking Tips Worksheet (PDF - 13 KB)
This is a 1 page tip sheet for trainers to maximize their effectiveness with training participants.
Kansas – Kickoff Presentation (PDF - 1.4 MB)
This is a 29 slide power point presentation along with presenter notes. The presentation outlines a family center system of care and details the principles, necessary infrastructure, services and philosophy of a system of care.
Training, development, and human resources work can be used as a tool to consistently offer feedback and advancement from a quality improvement standpoint. Each and every training and development event needs to have a built-in evaluation component that looks at the relevance of the curriculum used, format of the program, quality of the speakers and learning environment. Also, with regards to the human resources aspects of the system of care work, having all employees receive a regular comprehensive strength based evaluation so that superior work is recognized and appreciated by key supervisory staff. Further, it can be of great value to continually gauge staff training and development needs and how training impacts the morale of the staff. Also, evaluations can look at how training has impacted staff and agency performance. Is training and development activities making a difference in the work of all levels of system of care personnel?
Evaluations need to be infused in all aspects of a training, development, and human resources.
Activities, Questions to Consider
Training, development, and human resources continuous quality improvement activities and tasks in your community might include:
- Designing, developing, and distributing annual staff training and development needs assessment.
- Ensuring that all stakeholder groups have input into training and development needs within your system of care.
- Are you asking family members what training and development needs they might have?
- Are you asking family members what training and development needs practitioners might need based on their experience with the system?
- Are you sending training and development needs assessments out to all your interagency partners?
- Preparing evaluation questions for seminars, classes, conferences, and other training and development activities.
- Are you using a variety of methods to ask questions and collect data in evaluating the effectiveness of training and development activities? For example, are you making use of Survey Monkey?
- Are you asking open ended questions to elicit more comprehensive answers to questions, rather than a “yes” or “no” response?
- Analyzing data collected from various systems of care training activities to look at future training and development needs and impact of training on staff performance.
- Researching and recommending state of the art staff evaluation formats.
- Is there a process for providing continuous feedback between administrators, supervisors, and front-line staff?
- Infuse cutting edge, up-to-date content based on most recent available sources.
Key Partners
The people who perform training, development, and human resources duties in your community might include:
- Evaluation Team members
- System of care director
- Cross-agency training and development coordinator
- Support staff
- Family members, faith-based community, community organizations and non-profits
- Consultant pool
- Existing human resources staff in partner agencies and departments
- Existing child welfare training, development and human resources staff
- Agency training and development personnel
Sustainability
- Make sure that results of training and development needs assessments and evaluations of training events are brought to the attention of supervisors and administrators in order to allow for continual improvement in their staff development responsibilities.
- Help stakeholder groups who might not have a background in evaluation work understand the results of needs assessments and training/development evaluations.
- Visit all stakeholder agencies to introduce the importance of having a continuous quality improvement aspect to training, development, and human resource work.
Resources
Jefferson County, Colorado – Training Evaluation Form (PDF - 26 KB)
This one page evaluation form is designed in a pre-post format to see if the training had an impact on the involved participants.
Oregon – Orientation Evaluation Form (PDF - 15 KB)
This one page evaluation of the orientation gives the participant opportunity to evaluate the session and the trainer. It also allows for an open ended response on how to improve the orientation.
Pennsylvania – Confidentiality Forum Form (PDF - 36 KB)
This is a 2 page evaluation form that combines open ended questions with a rating scale of excellent/fair/poor. The evaluation questions focus on the material presented the quality of the presentations, the physical arrangements of the conference and suggestions for improving the training.
North Carolina – Conference Evaluation Form (PDF - 52 KB)
This is a 2 page 25 item evaluation form for a state-wide system of care conference. The survey evaluates whether the conference increased know of participants, met stated goals and objectives and gages the quality of the breakout sessions and presenters.Â
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Example from the Field
Site
Clark County, Nevada
Goal
The goal was to enhance staff skills for facilitating Child and Family Teams and strengths-based case planning, and to develop supervisors’ skills as coaches to their staff.
Strategy/Approach
What Was Done
A unit-based approach to training for Child and Family Teams and strengths-based case planning was developed and implemented. The five-part plan included: overview of Child and Family Team/strength-based case planning; a consultant-facilitated actual Child and Family Team meeting with supervisor observing; a supervisor facilitated a Child and Family Team meeting, with consultant coaching; an employee facilitated a Child and Family Team meeting, with supervisor coaching employee and consultant coaching supervisor; and consult based on individual needs of each unit.
Who Was Involved
All child protective services and permanency staff and supervisors received the training. Trainings were individualized to each unit and their supervisor, utilizing the strengths and addressing challenges of each team. As at least three of the consults involved actual Child and Family Teams, families, informal and formal supports, and community providers were also involved in the process.
Time Frame
The initial five-part plan was completed over a 5-month period, with one consult per month for each unit. Ongoing consults were continued for additional support.
Why This Approach Was Selected
The unit-based approach was developed to enhance staff skills, ensure consistency, and maximize use of staff time. Child and Family Teams were being done on some cases and larger group trainings on Child and Family Teams had occurred. With new case planning policy calling for Child and Family Teams for all case plans, it was essential that a consistent and thorough process be developed. By bringing training to each child protective services and permanency unit, the strengths of each team could be built upon and the challenges of each unit could be better addressed. Not only were skills gained, but team building was also reinforced. As staff had multiple time demands, bringing the consultant to each of the sites and engaging in actual Child and Family Teams helped minimize their time away from working directly with families.
System of Care Principles
Nevada’s Program Improvement Program adopted systems of care principles to guide Program Improvement Program activities. To ensure individualized, strengths-based approaches with child and family involvement in case planning, Child and Family Teams were written into new policy and procedures. This training approach and ongoing practice of Child and Family Teams also helped ensure cultural competence and enhance collaboration among child- and family-serving agencies.
Lessons Learned
Barriers/Facilitators
One of the challenges was the constraints and competing demands on staff and supervisors’ time. By taking the training to the units in their neighborhood-based sites, travel time was reduced and staff was better able to recognize the priority the agency placed on this approach. Staff obtained hands-on experience by being coached in real case planning with actual families.
Another challenge was that staff and other providers were sometimes engaging in team meetings that did not always stay true to systems of care principles. By providing consistent training to all staff (and community providers), expectations of the core elements of Child and Family Teams and strengths-based case planning were better understood.
What Might Have Been Done Differently
While community providers had participated in Child and Family Teams for families with whom they were involved, some expressed a desire to have more inclusion in trainings. Plans were developed for future trainings specifically geared toward the involvement of community providers and partner agencies in the Child and Family Team process.
Acknowledgements
toolkit a possibility. Thank you to the Children’s Bureau staff, specifically Bethany Miller and Pamela Johnson (retired), Federal Project Officers, for their guidance and support throughout the writing and editing process. A special thank you goes to the following people for graciously volunteering to be interviewed for the Voices from the Field Section of the toolkit: Rich Weisgal, Contra Costa County, California; Beth Evans, Children & Family Services Administrator, Kansas; and Fred Wulczyn, Chapin Hall Center for Children, New York. Many thanks to the representatives from the nine Systems of Care grant communities of the Improving Child Welfare Outcomes through Systems of Care demonstration initiative who willingly shared sample products and tools which have been highlighted in the Resources Section. Finally, we thank the members of Infrastructure Toolkit Workgroup, who all brought their expertise to the table:
- Susan Franklin, Program Manager, Jefferson County, Colorado, Department of Human Services
- Beth Evans, Children and Family Services Administrator, Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services
- Angela Braxton, Parent Leader, Kansas
- Peggy Taylor, Evaluator, Kansas
- Angela Mendell, Casework Supervisor, Bladen County, North Carolina
- Marie Parrott-Withers, Parent/Provider, North Carolina
- Helen Spence, System of Care Outreach Coordinator, Foster/Adoptive Parent, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania
- Ervin Talley, Community Member, Bedford-Stuyvesant, New York City, New York
- Kamelia No Moccasin, Oglala Lakota Tribe, South Dakota
- Paula Loud Hawk (deceased), Caseworker, Lakota Oyate Wakanyeja Owicakiya Pi Okolakiciye (Helping Children of the Lakota People), Oglala Lakota Tribe, South Dakota
- Nicole Bossard, Technical Assistance Team Leader, National Technical Assistance and Evaluation Center
- Gary De Carolis (Chair), Senior Consultant, National Technical Assistance and Evaluation Center
- Elleen Deck, Technical Assistance Liaison, National Technical Assistance and Evaluation Center
- Janet Griffith, Senior Fellow, National Technical Assistance and Evaluation Center
- Ethleen Iron Cloud Two Dogs, Technical Assistance Liaison, National Technical Assistance and Evaluation Center
- Caitlin Murphy, Analyst, National Technical Assistance and Evaluation Center