Each year, the Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare partners with School of Social Work faculty and researchers as well as centers to produce relevant training products for child welfare professionals. Training products were supported by Federal Title IV-E funds via grant #GK302 from the Minnesota Department of Human Services, Children and Family Services Division.
Center for Early Education and Development (CEED)
Consultation Groups, Certificate Program
Online consultation groups to train supervisors and front line workers in child welfare on reflective consultation supervision (RCS) and infant mental health. The online certificate builds foundational knowledge of child development for child welfare professionals.
Reflective Learning Communities, offered 11 months of free reflective consultation to child welfare professionals and supervisors with the goal is to build capacity in the child welfare field and to learn through experience more about building reflection, regulation, and relationships in child welfare work.
Online Certificate program, a pilot development of a free, online interdisciplinary training series providing specialized training and mentorship to professionals working in the child welfare field. The series launched in June 2023 and continued through 2024 and 2025. The series uses a relationship-based training model with the goal of building knowledge and skills around early childhood. With a combination of monthly live discussions, reflective dialogue, and asynchronous learning, participants engage in dynamic discussions with leaders and peers.
Participants also completed a personalized professional training plan.
Center for Practice Transformation (CPT)
Training Workshops, Tools & Asynchronous Training
De-escalation Through Mindfulness + Mending Relational Ruptures, an interactive 3-hour in-person training provided skills and tools for human service professionals to calm themselves and clients in escalated situations, it focused on enhancing the worker/family alliance.
Core Values Cards, this is a helpful tool commonly used in Motivational Interviewing to connect with caregivers/families and better understand what is important to them and why.
Resources for Engaging Families Binder, many child welfare professionals are committed to integrating person-centered practice into their work with children and families. This collection of helpful Practice Tips, Meeting Guides and Resources located in one binger was designed to support professionals in their work with families.
Supporting Sexual Development: A Guide for Child Welfare Workers, was developed to support child welfare workers in their practice with youth. It includes helpful information on core values, how to define sex and sexuality, as well as communication tips and reminders. It also addresses healthy sexual development, consent and provides guidance for having conversations where kids are not pathologized and it also provides respectful vs. predatory language examples.
Enhancing the Alliance: Skills that Build a State-matched and Culturally Responsive Relationship, this 5 CEU asynchronous course was designed to help practitioners learn practical skills and strategies to support a culturally responsive working alliance for their clients. The framework includes stage-matched care to identify a person’s stage of recovery and stage of change and respond accordingly, cultural humility to ground practitioners with their relationship in diversity and recognize power differences and specific skills to build a sense of presence and nurture client motivation.