The goal of Core for Supervisors is to build your leadership skills and confidence in your ability to support your team at the micro, mezzo and macro levels. Throughout the 11-day course, we will help you gain more knowledge about yourself, your leadership style and your practice as a whole.
Core will engage you through the use of videos, scenarios, small and large group activities, journaling and action plans, providing a rich environment for collaboration, discussion and individual reflection. Each day will layer and integrate knowledge to show the parallels to your agency practice and to cross thread the ideas in the classroom. We hope that you take the time to completely focus on your learning and building your skills while you are here.
Leading in Child Welfare – The Role of the Supervisor - September 9-10, 2020
Day 1 focuses on your new role as a supervisor in the environment you supervise. It explores:
- Your successes and challenges as a new supervisor
- The leadership behaviors detailed in the Integrated Core Practice Model (ICPM)
- How to lead your team with an understanding of legislation and changing practice
After attending Day 1, you will be able to demonstrate alignment with the California ICPM as foundational to leadership and supervisory behaviors as you transition into your role.
Day 2 serves as an opportunity for you to gain familiarity with data and fiscal tools to support you in your role as a supervisor. This course also explores how your communication style and approach affects and supports your team. Specific topics include:
- What your current organizational climate is and how it can affect those in your agency
- Secondary traumatic stress, self-care planning, and social worker well-being
- DiSC blends and managing up, down, and all around
After attending Day 2, you will be able to adapt your communication and behavior to complement those of the social worker and respond in a way that is supportive of the social worker.
Creating an Organizational Learning Environment - October 13-14, 2020
Learn about quality supervision and concepts to improve open communication in a variety of contexts. Topics in Day 3 include:
- The importance of supervision
- Motivational Interviewing & Solution Focused Inquiry
- Communicating across differences
After attending Day 3, you will be able to use inquiry and cultural humility to engage and communicate openly and effectively in a way that facilitates understanding of trauma and individual differences.
Explore how coaching skills can be incorporated into quality supervision through practice with skills, models and effective feedback.
After attending Day 4, you will have an improved ability to engage staff through the use of common fundamental coaching skills.
Data Informed Supervision - November 3, 2020
This session focuses on data driven decision-making using a continuous quality improvement (CQI) approach and explores how you can navigate the use of data to support fair and equitable treatment of families. The training content and activities will guide you through:
- Navigating and troubleshooting data and performance issues using a solution focused CQI approach
- The leadership and social worker behaviors detailed in the Integrated Core Practice Model T
- he use of data as a tool to support culturally responsive practice and fair and equitable treatment of children and families
After attending this training, you will be able to apply CQI principles within casework supervision to monitor progress toward desired outcomes
Supervising for Accountability - November 4, 2020
This session focuses on how to guide performance. Specifically, you will explore:
- Setting expectations
- Ensuring that staff are trained well enough to meet those expectations
- Helping reduce the barriers staff face
- Learning how to consistently reinforce the expectations
After attending this training, you will be able to set, communicate, measure, and reinforce expectations related to performance to bring out the best in your team.
Case Consultation and Critical Thinking: Teaming for Success - December 1-2, 2020
Day 7 explores critical thinking and decision-making in the context of child welfare case consultation. Topics include:
- The components of critical thinking
- Recognizing and reducing bias
- Incorporating the voice and choice of the families we work with
- Consulting with workers in a way that is balanced and informed
After attending Day 7, you will be able to demonstrate strategies that ensure collaborative decision-making with children, youth, and families.
Day 8 gives you an opportunity to apply the concepts of critical thinking and decision-making to help make balanced decisions that incorporate the voice of the family and youth. We’ll also be looking at the tools that help you set expectations around consultation and allow your staff to create consistent, quality consultations.
After attending Day 8, you will be able to apply and support critical thinking skills and cultural humility to strengthen collaborative assessments.
SOP for Supervisors - December 3, 2020
This session will focus on strategies for you to improve your own understanding of Safety Organized Practice (SOP) and ways to support integration of SOP into the daily practice and culture of your agency.
Topics include:
- The use of practice profiles and case review tools
- SDM and SOP integration
- Tips for mapping
You are encouraged to bring and share your challenges, questions and areas of struggle with SOP to this session.
Supporting Individual and Team Development - January 6, 2021
This session focuses on how you can support the ongoing development of your staff, both individually and as a team. Topics include:
- How to use Field Activities to promote development in new and experienced staff
- The stages of team development and the dysfunctions that arise
- How social worker ICPM behaviors are strengthened by your use of ICPM leadership behaviors
After attending this training, you will be able to strengthen and develop your team’s ICPM behaviors and skills by using the activities described in the Common Core Field Guide.
Ongoing Development as a Leader - January 7, 2021
This final session of Core for Supervisors serves both as a review of previous sessions and as an important exploration of your ethical responsibilities as a leader.
After attending this training, you will be able to create a professional development plan that encompasses the values of the ICPM and will continue to strengthen your supervisory practice moving forward.