Best Practices for Court Supervised Family Maintenance

Prerequisite: Completion of the SOP Foundational Institute is required to attend this training.

Safely maintaining children within their family and community is a key priority for child welfare services. This engaging and interactive training provides an opportunity for social workers to practice and enhance their skills in family engagement, assessments for safety (harm) and risk (danger) using Structured Decision Making, teaming, and transition planning during court-supervised family maintenance cases.

After attending this training, participants will be able to:

• Utilize Structured Decision Making (SDM)’s safety and family risk reassessments to guide decision making in court-supervised family maintenance cases.
• Describe the criteria for court-supervised family maintenance cases, both in context of child welfare law and as guided by SDM. 
• Apply SOP skills and SDM definitions toward quality monthly home visits.
• Develop strategies to incorporate a family’s formal and informal support networks to actively participate in maintaining child safety.
• Recognize and uphold that separation from one’s family of origin is a significantly traumatic event for children of all ages.