From March 26-28, 2024, the Northern Academy at UC Davis Human Services hosted hundreds of child welfare and probation professionals for the CQI Statewide Conference for Child Welfare and Probation in Sacramento. Sponsored by the California Department of Social Services, the annual in-person event explored how we can use continuous quality improvement (CQI) systems to paint a holistic picture of the people that these programs are meant to serve.
At the heart of our mission lies Kin-first Culture, a concept that prioritizes preserving familial bonds and community connections within the child welfare system. When children experience trauma at home, interventions must prioritize maintaining familial connections whenever possible to foster healing within the fabric of kinship networks.
Presented each spring by the Northern Academy at UC Davis Human Services, the Sarah Duncan Champion for Children and Families Award honors one of Northern California’s outstanding social workers and seeks to highlight additional child welfare line social workers who reflect Duncan’s passion, skill and tireless commitment to working to improve outcomes for children and families. This is the third year the award has been presented.
In celebration of National Social Work Month, the Northern Academy is proud to announce the nominees for the 2024 Sarah Duncan Champion for Children and Families Award!
It wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say we’ve hit the ground running in 2024 here at the Resource Center for Family Focused Practice; in fact, there might not have been any contact with the ground at all. We were absolutely flying to end 2023 and continue to soar as a team straight into 2024.
Sharing New Tools and Celebrating Successful Safety Organized Practice
As we surge into 2024 with a host of new and exciting changes, we’re happy to announce the release of a new and improved SOP Quick Guide and to feature a look back at one of many 2023 SOP Champions we'll be celebrating throughout 2024.
What is alloparenting? A December 2023 article from NPR highlights recent study and other research that illustrate the benefits of providing parents with more social supports and hands-on help with the care of infants and young children.
From Oct. 17-19, 2023, Human Services professionals enrolled in the 2023 Autumn Institute for Public Assistance Professionals started their workdays a bit differently.
Julie Greenwood, vice dean for Educational Initiatives in EdPlus at Arizona State University (ASU), will join the University of California, Davis, as its next dean of Continuing and Professional Education (CPE). Greenwood will start on Oct. 16.
Introducing new guidance on SOP & Family First Prevention Services integration, and reflecting upon the 2023 SOP Conference
With the 2023 California Safety Organized Practice Conference recently wrapped up, we couldn’t think of a more inspiring time to tackle the topic of SOP and Family First Prevention Services (FFPS) integration. The theme for this year’s SOP conference, collaborative engagement for prevention, said much about the monumental, infrastructure-wide shift underway toward prevention-focused services. The SOP Toolkit has some new tools to help with that.
Nearly 200 participants from 40 tribes and 10 states came together in Sacramento to share their experiences, celebrate one another’s culture, highlight successes, and enrich the spirit of collaborative learning and growth.
From July 17-20, Human Services at UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education welcomed tribal council members and elders to the table alongside human services professionals for the 2023 National Tribal TANF Institute in Sacramento. Now in its 18th year, the in-person event served as an overwhelmingly positive and empowering step toward improving
For the first time in more than five years, the California SOP Conference welcomed social workers from throughout the state back to the UC Davis Campus for two days of learning, sharing and inspiration.
Hosted by the Northern Academy at UC Davis Human Services on the Davis campus June 21-22, the 2023 California Safety Organized Practice (SOP) conference proved a reinvigorating return to its traditional form after the 2021 conference was hosted as a virtual event due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Presented each spring by the Northern Academy at UC Davis Human Services, the Sarah Duncan Champion for Children and Families Award honors one of Northern California’s outstanding social workers and seeks to highlight additional child welfare line social workers who reflect Duncan’s passion, skill and tireless commitment to working to improve outcomes for children and families. This is the second year the award has been presented.
In our continuing celebration of social workers beyond National Social Work Month, we are proud to announce new nominees for the 2nd annual Sarah Duncan Champion for Children and Families Award
For those who submitted a nomination, thank you so much for taking the time to recognize one of your valued colleagues. If you didn’t get a chance to nominate this year: Don’t worry! We are already taking submissions for next year’s award.
To continue our celebration of social workers beyond National Social Work Month, the Northern Academy is proud to announce the first slate of nominees for the 2nd annual Sarah Duncan Champion for Children and Families Award!
UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education – Human Services is pleased to announce that Michell Franklin, M.A., has accepted the position of Custom Training and Services (CTS) program director. Franklin will hold direct management oversight of the CTS program, including open enrollment courses and training contracts with a variety of county, state and nonprofit human services organizations throughout California.
“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the water to create many ripples.” – Mother Teresa
As we proudly present this second edition of our Horizons publication, we can’t help but reflect on how much has changed since the inaugural issue was released. In the summer of 2020, then-Human Services director Susan Brooks introduced the publication at a time when the human services community grappled with the combined crises of soaring unemployment, a global pandemic and the violent personification of systemic racism.
The topics presented at this year’s Autumn Institute all rested on the underlying idea that an individual’s full potential cannot be unlocked when their safety feels threatened—whether in a homeless encampment or in a conversation with a coworker.
Returning to celebrate in-person after four years, UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education happily hosted the biennial Outstanding Service Award reception for CPE instructors on Thursday, Sept. 8. CPE Dean Susan Catron presided over a reception that was well attended by instructors, staff, friends and family who were happy to celebrate the achievements of the past four years.
UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education (CPE) is pleased to announce Alison Book has formally been appointed as director of CPE’s Human Services division. Book replaces Susan Brooks, who recently retired as director and chair after a 35-year career. Book now serves in a dual role which includes continued oversight of the Northern Academy (one of California’s five regional training academies for child welfare professionals).
In July 2022 UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education Human Services hosted the 17th annual National Tribal TANF Institute. This year’s institute, held at the Hilton Sacramento Arden West hotel, saw over 230 attendees from 40 tribal agencies across 13 states. This Institute was the first to be held in-person in three years.
The theme of this year’s Institute, “Embracing the Power of Community,” recognized and celebrated the inherent strength that exists within native communities.
By listening and learning from others’ experiences, creating a trauma-informed system of care becomes more attainable in a way that strengthens the voice of the child, youth and family. Hosted by UC Davis Human Services, the Partnerships for Well-Being Institute provided a valuable opportunity for providers and professionals serving children and families to share perspectives. More than 620 people attended the conference, including practitioners in child welfare, behavioral health, early childhood, education and probation as well as other specialists serving children and families.
Over the past two years, human services professionals have gone from experiencing pandemic stress, to pandemic fatigue, to finding a “new normal” as they regain their footing in daily work life. On May 24, 2022, the Northern Academy at UC Davis Human Services hosted a free, full-day virtual event devoted to discussing the challenges of work and life stresses and how to find workable solutions to mitigate this stress.
Despite challenges faced with COVID-19 over the past two years, the coaching of staff (and their clients) continues to play a critical role in health and human services––now more than ever. Hosted by UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education–Human Services, the 2022 National Conference on Coaching in Human Services provided a valuable opportunity to bring together professionals from across the nation to develop and support coaching programs that benefit human services professionals, their organizations and the clients they serve.
We’d like to thank everyone who participated in National Social Worker Month this March! While the month may be over, we’ll never stop looking for new ways to express our gratitude for those who have made it their life’s work to support vulnerable children and families. To that end, we are thrilled to kick off April by announcing the winner of the inaugural Sarah Duncan Champion for Children and Families Award!
In our continuing celebration of National Social Worker Month, we are excited to announce the nominees for the inaugural Sarah Duncan Champion for Children and Families Award!
According to UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education–Human Services instructor May Orr, supervisors are the most critical factor in the transfer of learning for the staff and teams they lead. Beginning this fall, UC Davis Human Services is rolling out a new tool to help its training participants transfer what they’ve learned in class into practice at their organizations. To support the goal of increasing learning and skill development, each course offered through a county contract will now include a Supervisor Transfer of Learning (TOL) Tip Sheet.
This past July saw UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education—Human Services host the 16th National Tribal TANF Institute. The virtual conference hosted 230 participants from 44 tribal and governmental agencies from across the U.S. and featured an expanded schedule, with 40 workshop options. This year’s theme was “Empowering Our Spirits”, centering the importance of cultural values to provide the basis for healing, rejuvenation and growth.
Nearly 550 child welfare professionals from across the state participated in a two-day event aimed at improving the safety and well-being of tens of thousands of vulnerable children and families. Hosted by the Northern Academy at UC Davis Human Services, the California Safety Organized Practice Conference took place on June 15-16, 2021, as a free virtual event.
Despite the challenges that COVID-19 brought, the Partnerships for Well-Being Institute successfully wrapped up its final day as a virtual conference on June 3, 2021. Though it was initially scheduled as a three-day in-person conference in June 2020, UC Davis Human Services quickly pivoted and revamped it into a three-part series of one-day virtual conferences in June 2020, December 2020 and June 2021. More than 1,600 people attended at least one of the virtual Institutes, breaking the record for attendance at any past conference.
UC Davis Surgeon Dispels Myths about COVID Vaccine among Communities of Color
As COVID-19 vaccinations become more readily available, it may seem like we are close to the end of the pandemic, but the race is not over yet. Many Americans are wary of the vaccine, and as vaccine hesitancy persists, the progress toward herd immunity slows.
As the country fights back against the spread of COVID-19, UC Davis has done its most to protect its students and staff from rising case numbers. In fact, its partnership with the City of Davis, known as Healthy Davis Together, aims to expand its shield from the UC Davis campus to the Davis community as a whole. By providing free rapid testing, contact tracing, isolation housing and masks, this initiative has successfully slowed the spread of COVID-19 in Davis by identifying and containing infection before it can spread.
Upcoming Training for Trainers Institute emphasizes new techniques to optimize virtual teaching and learning
Knowing how to engage people in the learning process—particularly in a virtual environment—is more important than ever before. And while some training techniques work for both in-person and remote-learning settings, many others do not transition well in a virtual learning environment.
New interactive dashboard makes big data user friendly
There's no doubt that the shift from physical to virtual operations over the past year has been a challenge, but it has also enabled our services to become more accessible and inclusive.
New Visual Tool Shows Student Ratings from Human Services Virtual Trainings
The COVID-19 pandemic caused a sudden and overwhelming shift in the way we do business—providing classroom-based instruction, county-based training, state and national conferences, one-on-one coaching and other workforce development services to human services professionals throughout California and across the nation—but it did not shift our mission of changing practice and transforming lives.
Human Services at UC Davis was proud to provide this webinar series every Friday in August 2020 for Human Services leaders and staff as the kickoff to many additional course offerings that support anti-racist and culturally responsive practice in child welfare, eligibility, Wraparound and other Human Services programs. We were encouraged by the participation of our Human Services community with nearly 3500 total registrations for the webinar series.
Tiffany Salcido has more than 15 years of experience in the field of human services and social services programs. Passionate about empowering others, her experience spans various roles and programs, including clerical/reception, CalWORKs, CalFresh, Medi-Cal, Foster Care, Aid to Adoptions, Kin-GAP, CAPI, Linkages, and Welfare to Work. Salcido has also served as a staff development trainer, providing induction training and continuing education for eligibility, the C-IV automated system, and Welfare to Work programs.
In May the UC Davis Human Services Evaluation team participated in the Sonoma QMAG (short for Quality Management Advisory Group) biannual meeting for the fourth consecutive year. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, in lieu of convening at the North Bay Regional Center in Sonoma County as originally planned, over 30 participants attended the meeting virtually.
By now, some of us are beginning to adjust to the “new normal” at work. But that doesn’t make our jobs any easier. In an effort to help county human services professionals address issues and challenges related to the COVID-19 health crisis, we’ve developed three new courses that’ we’re offering as free webinars:
Like so many of you, our Human Services team has undergone a huge shift in the way we approach our work in response to the challenges presented by COVID-19. Many on our team are working from home for the first time and are learning quickly how to remain impactful remotely, while others are seasoned veterans at remote work and are sharing their wisdom freely.
On April 1 and 2 we hosted a series of webinars for Human Services staff and leaders focused on navigating the often-overlooked psychosocial impacts of a crisis in general, and with COVID-19 in particular. The trauma-informed and leadership-focused webinars examine some of the atypical leadership behaviors required during these challenging times, as well as trauma-informed leadership practices that can help reduce workforce burnout and stress.
World-renowned expert in child health and well-being and principal of the Neurosequential Network Dr. Bruce Perry, M.D., Ph.D., has produced a series of short videos to help professionals (and parents) better understand and navigate the impacts of the COVID-19 global health crisis—on themselves, their families and the vulnerable families they serve.
To access these videos, as well as other helpful resources from Dr. Perry, visit this site.
