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Family Engagement & Involvement
Family engagement is a prerequisite for helping the family achieve its goals. Key elements include:
- Listening to each family member
- Demonstrating respect and empathy for family members
- Developing an understanding of the family's past experiences, current situation, concerns, and strengths
- Responding to concrete needs quickly
- Establishing the purpose of involvement with the family
- Being aware of one's own biases and prejudices
- Validating the participatory role of the family
- Being consistent, reliable, and honest
- Engaging & involving fathers and paternal family members
- Engaging kinship families
Family Engagement | |
Series Title: | Bulletins for Professionals |
Author(s): | Child Welfare Information Gateway. |
Availability: | View Download (PDF - 328KB) Order (Free) - Add to Cart |
Year Published: | 2010 - 17 pages |
Describes the benefits of family engagement in the child welfare system. This bulletin for professional child welfare caseworkers discusses ways to achieve meaningful family engagement, specific strategies that reflect family engagement, and examples of State and local child welfare programs that have achieved success with engaging families. |
Family Engagement: A Web-Based Practice Toolkit
National Resource Center for Permanency and Family Connections (2010)
Makes promising practices, programs, and resources on family engagement available for programs, States, and Tribes. The toolkit is updated continuously to reflect current practices, programs, and resources in the field.
Engaging Clients from a Strengths-Based Solution-Focused Perspective
Pennsylvania Child Welfare Training Program (2007)
Teaches workers skills for using solution-focused strategies when working with families involved with the child welfare system.
Engaging Families
University of Denver Institute for Families
Perspectives on Practice, 1(2), 2005
Describes strategies for developing a rapport with families from other cultures, fathers, and teens, and reviews the importance of client-worker collaboration to the success of assessments and services.
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.
Growing and Sustaining Parent Engagement: A Toolkit for Parents and Community Partners (PDF - 495 KB)
Center for the Study of Social Policy (2010)
Features approaches to parent engagement and provides examples and questions to help readers create their own parent engagement roadmap, checklist, and support network.
The Importance of Family Engagement in Child Welfare Services (PDF - 425 KB)
Larsen-Rife & Brooks (2009)
Discusses barriers caseworkers encounter in engaging families in child welfare services and identifies characteristics of families associated with effective engagement.
Parent Partner Programs for Families Involved in the Child Welfare System
California Evidence-Based Practice Clearinghouse for Child Welfare
Describes parent partner programs reviewed and rated by the clearinghouse for their effectiveness in engaging parents to meeting their goals in safety, permanency, and well-being.
Relationship Between Public Child Welfare Workers, Resource Families and Birth Families: Preventing the Triangulation of the Triangle of Support (PDF - 689 KB)
Lutz (2005)
Describes a model of technical assistance called facilitated dialogue that brings social workers, resource families, and birth families together to explore their roles and strategies for cooperation.
Strengthening Our Engagement With Families and Understanding Practice Depth (PDF - 7150 KB)
Chapman & Field
Social Work Now, December 2007
Highlights the topic of vulnerability with articles about the importance of caseworker response to children, young people, and families; secure attachment; posttraumatic stress disorder; and more.
Virginia's Family Engagement Implementation Strategy for Child Welfare (PDF - 83 KB)
Virginia Department of Social Services (2009)
Describes Virginia's efforts to implement a family engagement model across the State. The document lists key activities in the areas of collaboration and integration, information sharing, local readiness assessment analysis, data, and training.
Working With Families Right from the Start
Massachusetts Department of Social Services
Resources and publications on this project aimed at improving the department's engagement and involvement with families.
Working With Resistant Families
Missouri Department of Social Services (2007)
In Child Welfare Manual
Examines skills needed to effectively work with clients who may be resistant to treatment and to prevent the potential for violence, including information on interviewing techniques for establishing a relationship.
Preventing child abuse & neglect: Partnering with parents
Achieving & maintaining permanency: Engaging parents in permanency planning
Achieving & maintaining permanency: Engaging parents in reunification
Management & supervision: Training - Topical training for caseworkers: Family involvement and engagement
Systemwide: Cultural competence - Working with children and families
Out-of-home care: Casework practice with birth families
Adoption: Working with expectant parents and birth families