SW201-01 Ability to navigate FamLink to accomplish all tasks specific to their program area in accordance to best practice and policy
SW203-03 Ability to employ developmentally and culturally appropriate interviewing techniques to help increase family participation and elicit necessary information
SW205-03 Ability to assess safety throughout the life of a case and evaluate conditions for family reunification
SW205-09 Ability to apply principles of child interviewing and assessment
SW208-04 Ability to integrate permanency planning throughout the life of the case
SW209-04 Ability to use a variety of caseworker strategies and interventions with children and families to prevent placement disruption and re-entry of children into care
SW217-01 Ability to provide or identify and refer for children and youth individualized supportive and treatment services as needs emerge
Participants will be able to:

Identify Health & Safety Visit policy requirements, including timeframes for conducting visits and documentation

Demonstrate ability to document necessary information, under the correct codes in FamLink

Utilize the information gathered in the Health & Safety Visit to assess safety, well-being, and permanency of the child

Utilize the information gathered in the Health & Safety Visit to assess progress towards the child’s permanent plan
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In-Service Training: Conducting & Documenting Health & Safety Visits

Coaches will need a computer and a digital projector for PowerPoint

Coaches will need laptops for each student

Students will need access to FamLink
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Students will need to access a recently documented Health & Safety Visit Case Note

Practices & Procedures Guide: 4420

Health & Safety visit Caregiver Checklist

Health & Safety visit Child Checklist

Personal Action Plan
Step
1 Discussion/Presentation
2 Documentation Activity
3 Debrief & Personal Action
Plan
Delivery Method
PowerPoint
Pairing Activity
Group & Individual Work
Time
40 minutes
1 hour
20 minutes
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In-Service Training: Conducting & Documenting Health & Safety Visits
Slide 1: Title Slide
Slide 2: Learning Outcomes
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In-Service Training: Conducting & Documenting Health & Safety Visits
Slide 3: Why do we do Health & Safety Visits?
 HANDOUT: Practices & Procedures Guide: 4420
 Health & Safety Visits are one of the most important ways we make sure children are safe

Part of our requirements for BRAAM

Are tracked closely for our adherence to the timeframes
Slide 4: Out-of-Home Placement Policy Slide

CPS/FVS is often responsible for the first H & S visit after an initial out-of-home placement
 CFWS is responsible for the first H & S after a placement change
 Even if siblings are placed in the same home, the worker needs to speak with the children/youth separately
 The majority of H&S visits must be in the placement home because we need to ensure that where a child is living is safe and it gives us an opportunity to assess how the child responds to the home environment and the people within the home
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In-Service Training: Conducting & Documenting Health & Safety Visits
Slide 5: In-Home Dependency Policy Slide
 All the mandated H & S visits must occur in the home, but that does not mean you can’t visit a child outside of the home. If you have concerns about the child’s ability/willingness to open up while talking to them at home, you can take a walk or go to a different
location to conduct the H&S visit.
 Children 0-5 who require twice monthly visits can have one of those visits conducted by a
contracted CA provider.
 This is a worker’s opportunity to really observe and hear how family change is happening
(or not!). We’ll talk more about this later.
Slide 6: Preparing for the Visit
 We must have a good understanding of the safety threats that brought the child into care as well as how we are working with the family to promote change prior to conducting our visit so we can answer those potentially “challenging” questions children and caregivers ask.

We need to know what’s on the current court order so we can ensure it is being followed.

We need to be able to use the information we gather to start to assess how we are making progress on the case plan.
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In-Service Training: Conducting & Documenting Health & Safety Visits

Optional: Have group share how they prepare to answer potentially challenging questions.
Activity: Ask the group, what would be emphasized or done differently during the health and safety visits during in-home and out-of-home Health and Safety visits?
Trainer Note: Put up two flip charts and record what the group reports. One flip chart is labelled in-home and the other out-of-home.
Training talking points:
In-Home Health and Safety Visits
Review of in-home safety plan
Out-of-Home Health and Safety Visits
Review of CHET recommendations and/or
EPSDT schedule for child’s well-being issues
Asking who is visiting or residing in the home Reporting of any safety issues to DLR to update home study or to review for licensing
Asking child what is different from before they were placed or before the intake and intervention plan
Looking at caregiver/child relationship in relation to other children in the home, especially birth children
Slide 7: During the Visit
 Pair-n-share: Give the pairs about 5 minutes each to share with one another

Encourage workers to share with large group any questions, assessment ideas, etc. that they felt were new or exciting
Slide 8: During the Visit continued
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In-Service Training: Conducting & Documenting Health & Safety Visits
 HANDOUT: Health & Safety visit Child Checklist

Point out that the other mandated observations/discussion pieces are italicized on the
 checklists
Give time for workers to read checklist
 Ask: How do you think you are doing obtaining the “required” information? How about getting information in the other areas?
Slide 9: Caregiver Conversation & Observation

HANDOUT: Health & Safety Visit Caregiver Checklist

Point out that the other mandated observations/discussion pieces are italicized on the checklists

Often this part of the H & S visit is where you can gain a lot of the information about the child that we need to know to ensure the child’s needs are being adequately addressed
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In-Service Training: Conducting & Documenting Health & Safety Visits

Pay special attention to areas of progress (celebrate!) and areas of stress. Those areas of stress sometimes are the spark that turns into a fire later on-being proactive might be the difference between a child being stable in placement or not
 LISTEN to the caregivers needs/fears/frustrations-you may not necessarily be able to do must about them, but it can make a big difference to a caregiver just to know you have heard them
Slide 10 & 11: Documentation
 COACH DEMONSTRATES CASE NOTE DOCUMENTATION IN FAMLINK

Policy indicates information gathered during the H & S visit can be documented either in the case note or in the current assessment (CFE or FA); offices vary on how they are doing this. Bottom line is there still needs to be a case note for data purposes.

Workers should be documenting health & education information in their proper places in FamLink so that it is included in the court report.

Information gathered during the H & S visits can also help answer questions on the
Visit Plan, as well as guide decision making around making visits more or less restrictive.
Slide 12: Assessment
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In-Service Training: Conducting & Documenting Health & Safety Visits

Ask the group what other ways they think the information gathered during a H & S
visit helps them assess the child’s safety, permanency, or well-being
Slide 13: Documentation Activity
Trainers Note: If the group is particularly defensive or not feeling safe with each other, you can ask the group to review their own case note. This should be a rare event.
Slide 14: Debrief & Developing a Personal Action Plan
 HANDOUT: Personal Action Plan
 Ask for group to “shout out” what new information they learned (or remembered) today.
 Ask for any final questions.
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