The Family Assessment Tracking System (FATS) serves the following purposes: As a summary of the family's protective capacities, concerns and problems as perceived by the family, the worker/department and other collaterals. As a tool to engage families and collaterals in order to gather information about the child and family as it pertains to the reason the department is currently involved with the family. As initial and ongoing documentation of pertinent information regarding the family's functioning, including the worker's observations. Any discrepancy in information should be clarified by the worker and explained in the documentation. As a source of the information gathered through the assessment process to identify strengths and needs of the family that will translate into the development of a case plan to address identified concerns/problems. As the documentation of the case plan development participants; case plan; and, the case plan review and progress. As the case record documentation for all case contacts and activities. As documentation of updates and periodic reviews of the assessment, case plan and case documentation as required in department program policy. These tutorials will provide instruction to DCFS staff on how to use FATS . The tutorials will instruct you on how to navigate the four parts of FATS: Part 1 - Family Builder Part 2 - Assessment of Family Functioning (AFF) Part 3 - Case Plan Part 4 - Case Documentation.

The training consists of how to complete the form, what can be referred, and what supporting documentation is needed to refer.

Engagement, critical thinking, self-reflecting, cultural awareness, and interviewing are essential skills necessary for child welfare professionals to complete comprehensive family assessments. This course provides information on these topics. Family assessments are critical to the job of a child welfare worker. Conducting accurate assessments can impact children's safety, permanency, and well-being in the child welfare system. Therefore, they are critical to child welfare practice. According to the Child and Family Services Reviews (CFSR) findings, the Children's Bureau identified a connection between comprehensive family assessments and good outcomes for children and families. In addition, positive ratings on comprehensive family assessments are associated with positive ratings on permanency and safety outcomes (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2014). Comprehensive Assessments are needed to help workers know what steps to take to keep children safe. Learning Objectives: - Define the purpose of various assessments and how and when to use various tools - Identify the strengths and needs or limitations of families - Identify what types of information child welfare workers must gather when conducting an assessment - Recognize and explain conditions or contributing factors that impact safety and increase risk

This workshop will provide opportunities for children and adolescents to bond with their foster families in diverse ways. This session will focus on foster families discovering more about what each individual person's interests are as well as finding commonalities. We will discuss different types of art, explore varieties of music, and express ourselves with storytelling. We will practice some fun sing-alongs and create artwork that shows a different side of ourselves. A supply list incorporating items you have at home can be found below. Upon completion of this course, participants will: - Include foster parents, foster children and other children in the home. Everyone will engage in virtual group activities together with other foster families. - Learn and experience the benefits of using different creative methods. - Have the opportunity to laugh together, to create together, and to get to know each other on a different level.

Family Preservation Team Meetings (FPTM) are a core strategy to engage family and community members in safety and placement-related decision making, a critical aspect of child welfare work. These meetings aim to improve the agency’s decision-making process; to encourage the support and “buy-in" of the family, extended family and community; and to develop specific, individualized interventions to meet the unique needs of older youth. Family Preservation Team Meetings bring youth, family and community members to the table together with the professionals when the agency is considering removal of a youth from the home. The meetings focus on whether removal is warranted and, if so, where the youth would go. Facilitated by non-case carrying, experienced child welfare staff, the goal is to seek consensus on a plan that protects the youth and preserves family relationships. Today, more teens are coming into care for reasons not directly related to abuse and neglect. They are landing in child welfare placements because of parent-child conflict that threatens the youth’s safety and well-being. Because the family dynamics are not necessarily directly related to maltreatment, it suggests that an in-home or community-based response may be more appropriate in such cases. This 30 minute course is designed to prepare front-line DCFS workers and supervisors for their role and participation in Family Preservation Team Meetings. Staff will become familiar with the FPTM stages and process and will explore their role before, during and after the Meeting. The session emphasizes the values and benefits of engaging the family’s natural networks as resources for safety planning and when necessary, placement.

At the national, state, and local levels, there is increasing recognition of the importance of safe family relationships to ensure children's success and well-being. Recognizing the family's critical role, child welfare systems must strive to identify, locate, and engage kin to support children at all stages of the casework process. The search for relatives must begin without delay when taking protective action to manage child safety, whether that protective action is in-home or out-of-home. Involving family members can help prevent children from entering foster care, mitigate the trauma for children who are removed by increasing the likelihood that they will live with someone they know, or by supporting them while they are in state custody. Family Search and Engagement (FSE) is designed to locate, engage, connect, and support family resources for children. It is both a philosophy and a practice approach. FSE is built on the foundational values and beliefs of family and youth engagement and family-centered practice. FSE employs outreach strategies focused on gathering information and building relationships that can support a youth's fundamental need for safe, enduring family connections. This one-day training session examines the principles and values required for relative search to be effective and how these can be reflected and applied in everyday practice. Participants will be introduced to a variety of family finding strategies to uncover and explore a youth and family's natural network of relationships -including both maternal and paternal- who can offer a range of support and connection. The presentation focuses on in-the-moment skills, conversations and tools that assist in engaging family and helping youth establish or re-establish safe relationships, recognizing that permanent family connections are often closer than we realize!