Where We're Headed...

The OCWTP's current initiatives include:

	CAPMIS
	Distance Learning
	Evaluation
	E-Track
	FAK Training
	Integrating Technology
	Orientation & Readiness
	Trainer Development
	University Partnership Program

CAPMIS

The OCWTP has developed three learning opportunities for CAPMIS implementation.  Interested staff should contact the RTC for additional information and registration.

1. The CAPMIS Implementation Training Curriculum (February 2007) has been revised from three days to two (January 2009) and is now available statewide.
   
2. "Screening: The First Step in Child Protection" is a one-day workshop for Child Welfare staff involved in the process of screening referrals.  The focus of the workshop is on skill development in engaging and interviewing referents, prompting for detailed information regarding safety factors, categorizing referral information based on CAPMIS screening guidelines, and making accurate safety and risk informed decisions. 
   
3. "The CAPMIS Tool Kit: Assessing for Child Safety Throughout the Life of a Case" is being developed to extend additional application and practice opportunities beyond the two-day foundational training.  The Tool Kit will contain a variety of activities to meet CAPMIS training needs through specialized workshops, on-site coaching, blended learning activities, distance learning, self-study, and resource links.  It is a unique approach designed to serve supervisors, managers, and caseworkers and meet "customized" learning needs in individual county agencies.

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Distance Learning

The OCWTP is currently offering several distance learning courses, with more in the process of being developed and piloted.  Ohio’s foster and adoptive parents can now take online courses via the Foster Parent College, which offers a collection of self-directed courses on a range of topics important to caregivers.  Professionals responsible for providing services to Indian children and their families have access to an online course outlining the Indian Child Welfare Act.

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Evaluation

According to the American Society for Training and Development and the Learning Resources Network, while most organizations (77%) measure the value of training using satisfaction surveys at the end of workshops, very few organizations (36%) try to measure the learning that occurs as a result of training; and even fewer (15%) attempt to measure if training resulted in a change of behavior. While the OCWTP has collected workshop satisfaction data since 1987, it is now one of the few statewide child welfare training programs to field test a process to measure the learning that occurs as a result of attending OCWTP workshops and then assess the transfer of learning from workshops to the agency workplace.

The OCWTP is currently:

• Conducting pre- and post testing in Caseworker and Supervisor/Manager Core workshops to measure learning, and collecting demographic data to help analyze pre- and post test results
• Developing indicators to help assess the transfer of learning from Core workshops to the agency workplace
• Evaluating several online courses to help determine if the OCWTP should continue to offer online training;
• Working with university-based researchers, child welfare professionals, and training experts to further revise the evaluation methodology to ensure it strikes the right balance between what is required in field-based evaluation research and what is feasible and practical in a statewide training system servicing 88 county agencies

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E-Track

The OCWTP is gearing up for a projected 2010 rollout of its first ever online learning management system, E-Track. E-Track will allow OCWTP trainees instant access to their individual training records; the ability to search and register for training; the ability to launch OCWTP-specific online learning modules; the ability to complete online individual training needs assessments, in congress with their supervisor, and be presented with an instant list of available learning interventions and resources to meet their needs; and the ability to complete online evaluations and receive instant digital certificates after completion of training.

E-Track will allow OCWTP trainers instant access to their calendar of currently contracted trainings; the ability to view their own individual trainer development plans; and the ability to search and register for online and classroom trainer development workshops.

E-Track will allow RTCs the ability to gather instant aggregate training needs data to track trends and plan future training; the ability to create, edit, populate, and track learning interventions online; and the ability to instantly access trainers available and approved to train a specific workshop.

Finally, E-Track will allow the state training coordinator (IHS) the ability to develop and launch online learning modules and blended learning; to specifically monitor the ongoing development of its vast trainer pool; to track overall training trends within counties, regions, or across the state; to collect much more specific evaluative feedback on its training's effectiveness; and to streamline the release and delivery of pre- and post training resources.

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FAK Training

The OCWTP has completed eleven of fourteen curricula planned for the Foster Care Fundamentals training series. The completed courses address crisis de-escalation, discipline, working with primary families, attachment, child development, fostering self-reliance, caring for children who have been sexually abused, and the effects of fostering on the caregiving family.  Under development  is a curriculum to teach caregivers about healthy sexual development. The remaining two Fundamentals workshops being planned will address cultural issues in placement and the foster caregiver’s role on the child welfare team.

Online courses are now available for foster caregivers through the Foster Parent College.  Another online course, for caseworkers and supervisors, is the National Indian Child Welfare Association workshop about the tenets of the Indian Child Welfare Act.

Handouts for standardized FAK courses, Assessor workshops for caseworkers and Preservice and Fundamentals workshops for caregivers, are now available on the OCWTP website.  Workshop participants are now able to access all standardized handouts through the Internet.  This access allows the Program to save funds by eliminating costly paper handouts for each participant.

Assessor workshops are updated and revised on a regular basis.  Services for Birth Parents and Pre-Finalization Services (both Tier I) and Openness in Adoption (Tier II) have all been revised during the last contract period.

New competencies have been developed for both caregivers and staff.  FAK staff members are currently working to simplify a process for training needs assessment for caregivers.

Learning objectives for all Assessor workshops have been identified, and new surveys, using these learning objectives,  specific to each workshop have been piloted.

The Assessor Refresher is a course developed for assessors who have been out of practice in Ohio for more than two years.  This two-day course provides a review and update of significant information trained in the Assessor series.  The course is regularly updated as Assessor workshops are revised.

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Integrating Technology

Over the next two years, the OCWTP will continue planfully integrating technology throughout the OCWTP where and when it is appropriate to enhance the OCWTP’s collaborative work and training delivery. 

Toward this end, the OCWTP spent the last year researching best practice in distance learning delivery; investigating the benefits and liabilities of the various technologies available today; and interviewing key informants and other state and national programs to find out what they have learned through their own use of technology in training delivery, and what distance learning components they have developed that they would be willing to make available to the OCWTP.  The information gathered was synthesized into the June 2009 report, “Comprehensive Design: Integrating Distance Learning into the OCWTP.” 

During the next two years, the OCWTP will be actively engaging with the counties to share the OCWTP’s distance learning philosophy and planning, and explain how they will be seeing this manifested in training opportunities.  This will involve sharing the findings from the Comprehensive Design report; and communicating how the OCWTP plans to use technology-enhanced training to maintain and even strengthen the adult learning principles that have always been the underpinnings of the OCWTP’s training philosophy.   

Finally, the OCWTP anticipates having its new online learning management system, E-Track, rolled out within the counties during 2010. This exciting new program will be a central component to the effective delivery of distance learning for the OCWTP, providing the platform from which the OCWTP will launch distance learning content, message boards, and chatrooms.   As we get closer to rolling out E-Track, the OCWTP will be actively communicating the purpose and function of E-Track to the counties, along with providing training on the system’s use. For more information on E-Track, see the section below.

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Orientation

The OCWTP has developed a new resource page for  new employee orientation. The orientation resources are designed to orient new staff to the overall field of child welfare, to their specific agency, and to their community. Counties can use the resources and content outline as a roadmap to design an orientation program that meets the unique needs of their new employees . The resources include an outline of recommended orientation topics and content; resources and links to recommended orientation content; and worksheets and activities designed to help new employees gather and keep track of information specific to their agency and their community.

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Trainer Development

On October 2008, the Ohio Child Welfare Training Program (OCWTP) made a commitment to begin including evidence-based practice principles to all aspects of the training system.  In 2009, the OCWTP began the process of reviewing and updating all specialized and related workshops offered to child welfare staff and foster caregivers/adoptive parents.  Trainers, RTC staff, and IHS staff are working hard to ensure specialized and related workshops have updated outlines and reference lists.  More than 1,000 workshops have been submitted to the review process.

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University Partnership Program

The University Partnership Program (UPP) is a unique partnership among the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, Ohio’s public universities' schools of social work, the Public Children Services Association of Ohio, Ohio’s 88 PCSAs, and the Ohio Child Welfare Training program.  A major goal for the UPP is to provide Ohio's public children services agencies with well prepared caseworkers, who come to their jobs with a career commitment and a full understanding of the field of child welfare.

BSW seniors and MSW candidates admitted to the UPP are required to take two specialized child welfare courses and complete one year internships at an Ohio PCSA.  In order for graduates to be eligible to receive $5,000 per year of UPP participation, they must secure full time employment in direct services at an Ohio PCSA within 180 days of graduation.

Current UPP initiatives include the finalization of a new centralized management information system and an initiative to implement a standardized UPP application process across the eight (8) participating universities.

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