Summary of Client’s Challenge

Change by Design was hired by the Florida Department of Children and Families to develop a comprehensive curriculum for preservice child welfare workers.

We knew going into this project that the work we were doing was important at a humanity level. Because children who grow up in family systems where abuse, neglect, addiction, mental illness, severe dysfunction, and even torture are all the norm, tend to grow up and perpetuate these patterns if there is not effective intervention. Therefore, we created a transformational training that empowered child welfare workers of all kinds throughout the state of Florida to do their jobs effectively. This was critical to helping those works slow down and even stop the destructive cycles of generational abuse in the children they were assigned.

Storytelling was a key part of our approach. We carefully crafted a narrative around a multi- generational family whose story spanned 40 years. In this story, we showed where the trauma began, how it festered, and how it was perpetuated. We also showed how intervention could lead to resilience and positive transformation for the family over time. 

After coming to understand the various skills for various roles in DCF, we were able to extrapolate back to what all individuals needed to be able to do. To understand all these skills, we pulled together a case study using my own family system as well as others to see how the skills needed to be actuated.

Eventually it was clear that the case study could be expanded to train core skills. The result was a very detailed three-generation family story, where one of the younger adult children in the family became dysfunctional and reported into the system for child abuse and neglect of his son. Anchored by four videos at specific points in the process plus 16 eLearnings, learners applied what they learned to address this family case. The goal was to create a family story so compelling, so motivational, and tied into what these child welfare workers had to do that they would essentially carry that family with them into their work. Learners would engage with the family in all key activities throughout their eight-week course.

 John Keller’s ARCS model of instructional motivation draws a clear picture of how this motivation worked for these child welfare worker learners.

Learner Attention

This meant gathering and sustaining learner attention through such devices as surprise, eliciting curiosity, and providing unexpected experiences. By peppering the learning experience with a variety of approaches – video, role play, eLearnings – that would show up in unexpected ways, coupled with an unfolding family story/drama that kept learners guessing – they were motivated to walk through all skill building activities to see what might happen next, and next again.

Relevant To Audience

This meant making sure the training was relevant to the target audience. We made sure that the linkages between these newly hired case workers, their jobs, and the training were obvious. Learners played the role of the child welfare worker with this family system throughout all activities, which was centrally relevant to them and their work in the field.

Learner Confidence

Providing the learner with the information and skills needed so that they have confidence to perform what they must perform. Throughout the course, as learners engaged in all case-based activities, they could compare their completed work to provided ‘correct’ versions that explained why they were correct. In addition, trainers provided frequent critical feedback on their progress, as well as a great deal of encouragement to keep going.

Learner Satisfaction

Ensuring that they know that they will be sufficiently satisfied with their end result. Live trainers provided encouragement, corrective feedback and help to learners to enable them to see their progress over the eight Core curriculum weeks. They experienced countless periods of time being dissatisfied with their individual activity results. But as they progressed, they could see themselves improving – with constant trainer feedback – so that each learner could project out that they would be satisfied with the end result of their training.

Most activities within the core curriculum centered on this family, so that child welfare workers would engage deeply with an authentic family case study. In this way, they were more likely to later remember while working out in the field, the nuances of this story, including all of its characters and why they had to persist with difficult families.

Supplemental eLearning training was designed to dovetail with the practicum piece of this core curriculum. These eLearnings were part of an accountability structure that ensured child welfare workers had a rich apprenticeship-type of field experience and held supervisors accountable for true change in the system.

The project was fraught with challenges, but we stayed the course and produced logic-model aligned, evidence-based training that could indeed develop workforce capacity, infuse deep insights into the challenges and needs of families in crisis, and enable a new cadre of child welfare workers to do the messy, heartbreaking, hopeful work that they must do with families to make a difference.

Contact Change by Design today if you have workforce training support needs, involving case workers that must maintain a deep understanding of generational trauma and how to help children and their families to overcome it.