Administration workers are often the first persons with whom a client or potential client of your agency will have contact. When that initial contact is by an upset, highly anxious or angry client, it is not easy to find the right response. This workshop equips and supports administration workers in their role of providing ‘first-up’ responses to clients and members of the public who present in person at reception or over the phone. We consider how to interact calmly and safely with people who are presenting in a state of crisis or affected by alcohol or drugs, including how to convey empathy while encouraging the client to contain their anger or upset or behaviour. A workshop for all admin workers who may be ‘first-up’ in responding helpfully in difficult situations or helping to de-escalate potential crises.

Who should attend?

Administration workers in human service agencies who have direct ‘front counter’ or telephone contact with clients and members of the public.

How often have you heard this phrase ‘it takes a village’? In contemporary child welfare work we know and believe this to be true. We also know that too many of the families we work with remain isolated and excluded from the connections and opportunities they need to create the life they want. We know they often feel trapped under the weight of a ‘spiral of disadvantage’, that sometimes they – and we! – can’t clearly understand or articulate. This can affect our ability as workers to help families escape this disadvantage and succeed in moving forward.
This workshop offers a contemporary and practice-oriented frame of reference for the use of social inclusion theory in family support. Clarify your understanding of social exclusion and how exactly it can impact upon the ability of the families you work with to achieve the goals they have set for themselves. Consider how to harness the concepts and resources of social inclusion, in practice, to support families in overcoming exclusion and disadvantage. Think through how to help realise opportunity for families and support them to create their own village, within the family support role. How can social inclusion concepts be used to plan and deliver effective family support services to families?

Who should attend?

For government and non-government managers, supervisors and practitioners working in family support and reunification services.

Supervisors in the area of child, youth and family welfare commonly learn how to supervise solely through ‘on the job’ experience. Their main source of knowledge may be their own experiences of being supervised. This interactive one-day workshop helps supervisors in child and family welfare and youth services to understand supervision as a specific area of practice and to develop their practice skills in this area.  Participants consider contemporary thinking and knowledge around supervision frameworks and models and are supported to use this in developing their supervision practice approach.

Who should attend?

Government and community agency workers currently supervising staff, new supervisors and workers interested in taking on a supervisory role.

Safety and risk assessments are foundation skills for effective child protection practice, underpinning all decisions about safety and support. This comprehensive workshop uses evidence-based knowledge to develop participants’ understanding of the concepts central to risk assessment in contemporary child protection practice. Beyond a core understanding and skills-base in child protection, this workshop challenges participants to examine how they apply knowledge in practice. Practical exercises, using frameworks which reinforce good quality assessments, enable participants to increase their competence in making comprehensive assessments and defensible decisions.

Who should attend SaFa training?

Child protection workers in government and community based services, including Family and Child Connect, Intensive Family Support, statutory intervention services and FIS, alternative care and reunification services, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Family Wellbeing services, Assessment and Service Connect practitioners. Both experienced workers and those newer to the field will benefit.

There are no risk-free decisions in child protection placement work. Foster and kinship care offers a protective strategy to keep children safe, but it comes with inherent risks (and benefits). This workshop offers Foster and Kinship Care Support Workers the opportunity to clarify and develop their risk-assessment framework to ensure that they are tuned in to both the structural and inherent risks in foster care, as well as the individual risk profiles of the child and carer themselves. Identifying risks and strengths allows FKC Workers to work purposefully in supporting foster and kinship carers. This in turn will support placement stability and continuity and better outcomes for children in placement.

Who should attend?

Foster and Kinship Care Support Workers in government and community agencies.