The SOP Toolkit: Safety Over Service Compliance
A foundational principle informing Safety Organized Practice is that services and safety are not the same thing. Service completion, on its own, does not promise child safety. Behavior change, on the other hand—demonstrated and sustained over time—is a far more promising sign of safety. Case plans that are behavior-based—that is, focused on specific, concrete strategies and actions to positively change the parent’s behavior regarding its impact on the child—can go a long way toward ensuring safety.
Our SOP Toolkit takes a deeper dive into Behaviorally Based Case Plans (BBCP) from both a social worker and leadership lens. The quick guide for line staff includes tips and strategies from initial engagement with families all the way to creating S.M.A.R.T. objectives, while the guide for supervisors focuses on supporting staff in the implementation of BBCP in their practice.
Behaviorally Based Case Plans Quick Guides
Got Any More Quick Guides?
We do! You can browse our full quick guide catalogue at the SOP Toolkit website.
Stories from the Field...
SOP Pioneer Susan Brooks Retires as Chair of UC Davis Human Services
It happened so quietly—she practically snuck out the door—but that was true to her character. She never wanted the focus to be on herself. It was always about California’s vulnerable children and families and what we could do to help them. On June 29, 2022, Susan Brooks, an SOP force of nature if there ever was one, retired as the Chair of Human Services at UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education. As she sets off to begin a new and exciting stage in her life, we take this opportunity to reflect on her amazing contributions to the field.
Many of our colleagues and community partners may have known Susan better as the former Director of the Northern Academy, which she led for more than 20 years before answering the call to oversee the larger Human Services team at UC Davis. In all, she spent more than three decades supporting and improving outcomes for children and families, and her contributions to the field of child welfare have positively influenced practice statewide.
During her time with the Northern Academy, Susan was a fierce advocate for Northern California counties and raising the bar on best practice. Even before assuming a larger role within Human Services, she was never content to limit her focus to a specific boundary or population. If something was being done well somewhere in California to help kids and families, then it was something to share with everyone and anyone who was trying to help kids and families elsewhere; vice versa, she also wanted to grab whatever was working elsewhere—be it Nevada City, New York, or New Zealand—and infuse it into California’s child welfare practice. Toward that end, Susan developed a multitude of collaborative partnerships with several universities, national, and even international organizations that provide support for child and family safety and well-being worldwide. Honing this comprehensive community of practice helped usher in one of her most noteworthy contributions: Pioneering the early concept, development, and implementation of Safety Organized Practice in California. Her work to champion SOP, along with her fierce advocacy for coaching to support implementation, is now part of the very fabric of what we consider child welfare best practice. She was also one of the founding members of the Safety Organized Practice Backbone Committee.
Susan herself would not be quick to claim any of these accolades. She might even roll her eyes or change the subject if someone tries to read them to her. Nevertheless, those who worked closely with her know how much helping people really means to her. On behalf of the SOP Backbone Committee and everyone who has made it their life’s work to improve the lives of vulnerable children and families, we would like to thank Susan for all her amazing, impactful, and lasting contributions to the field, and to wish her a relaxing and rewarding retirement!
Share Your Own SOP Success Stories, Tips and/or Tools!
The power of SOP has always been that it is grassroots – developed and enhanced by the people who use it in practice! Have you developed a new SOP tool for your own county? Or do you have a success story to highlight? If you have a specific tool or a story from the field you’d like to share, you can do so through our submission form. Simply fill in the fields, attach the tool, and we’ll be in touch from there!
Learn More About the SOP Toolkit
Be sure to visit the Safety Organized Practice (SOP) Toolkit website.
Check out the SOP Toolkit blog!
Read about more Tools from the Kit and Stories from the Field on the SOP Toolkit blog.