Summary of Client’s Challenge
The state of Florida identified a workforce development need for training related resources for newly-hired prevention workers with 0 – 3 years in the field. They funded the Florida Center for Prevention Workforce Development (CPWD) to conduct a series of activities to identify the most important skills needed and develop these materials.
For people not working within the social service sector, the concept of “prevention” can be a little difficult to understand at first. When faced with child welfare issues, we may know that there is a problem that must be addressed, but there are still some big “ifs". For example, a child may be experiencing abuse or may be neglected. If a prevention worker removes them from their home, where do they go? And will it be a better result if they do remove them? These are some of the things our Instructional Designers needed to better understand to help craft the right learning solution, based on the context.
Ultimately, child welfare representatives work hard to find the best way to keep the child safe while, hopefully, remaining in the home. We have found that prevention requires a different approach than business process improvement or skills remediation, because young lives are at stake. One of the items our team realized through the rigorous research and analysis process, was that prevention workers must build resilience capacity in at-risk children and families to prevent them from entering the child welfare system or experiencing other life-altering situations like teen pregnancy, dropping out of school, domestic violence, substance abuse, and mental health issues.
Determining Scope Through Research Activities
To determine what the training needs were, Change by Design undertook several research activities, including:
Conducting in-person interviews and follow-up observations with 27 prevention workers serving in a variety of roles throughout Florida. To accomplish this, we traveled to six different main hub throughout the state.
Conducting a needs assessment of the prevention-focused system in Florida as well as a training needs assessment to identify the skill needed to address the gaps in results within Florida’s prevention-focused system.
Identifying common skills that all prevention workers, 0-3 years, needed to perform their jobs.
Conducting a gap analysis of all existing prevention worker-focused training in the United States to identify relevant resources that would address identified training needs assessment gaps.
Based on this research, we determined that there were no current training resources that would meet the needs of new prevention workers with 0-3 years of experience. As the result, we designed and co-developed a three-day Prevention Institute. Titled “Today’s Tools for Tomorrow’s Success”, the Institute trained the target audience in the macro-level prevention-focused skills they needed in order to be effective no matter what role they played to prevent the following unhealthy behaviors in children of all ages: teen pregnancy, dropping out of school early, violence, smoking, and taking drugs.
Expanding The Institute’s Offering
The Florida Center For Prevention Workforce Development, with Change by Design’s assistance, delivered seven iterations of the Institute throughout the state. Performance was tracked through a variety of means, with self-efficacy and other learning gains indicating that the training was highly effective.
This training was even designated as a National Best Practice in Behavioral Health Workforce Development through the Annapolis Coalition, because it developed prevention workforce expertise through active engagement in application activities, devoting 1/3 of the three days to instruction and 2/3 of the three days to discussion and practice.
Successive Learning Collaborations
Change by Design continued its relationship with the Florida Center for Prevention Workforce Development for the next several years, delivering a total of courses (10) to build capacity in direct service prevention workers, and with the broader population of people working in the field of prevention. The courses included:
Environmental Strategies
Social Marketing
Coaching
Prevention Supervision
Prevention Frameworks
Risk and Protective Factors
Assessing Community Needs
Sexual Violence Against Women
Change for the Better
Suicide Training
For each of these courses, Change by Design took an initial script and modified it to improve learning efficacy. Our team also developed activities to facilitate processing of the material.
Lastly, we developed these courses in the organization’s learning management system or LMS, Moodle.
This long-term partnership provided true meaningful change for communities throughout Florida, and we even received a letter of recommendation and commendation from the agency’s leadership:
While many instructional designers are able to provide a technically accurate product without prior knowledge of the subject matter, few are able to offer a result that captures deeper nuances of meaning and understanding of the topic. Dr. Ebbers is one of those few. I am confident that if you choose to contract with Dr. Ebbers, she will provide you with an outstanding product that far exceeds your expectations.
- Director Gail D.
Contact Change by Design today if you seek a long-term training design and development vendor, who truly understands the complexity, urgency, and importance of addressing high acuity social issues, and is capable of artfully delivering solutions that deliver results on a state-wide or national scale.