Capacity Building Center for States

​​Learn about building trust intentionally by listening to and considering the differing and individual needs of parents, foster families, kinship families, and youth. Co-host Tony Parsons talks about sharing power and the slow process of system change with Judy Tudor, Assistant Director of Clark County Department of Children and Family Services, and Madison Sandoval-Lunn, the Center’s Family and Youth Empowerment Program Area Manager. This is the second part of their hour-long conversation started in Episode 2. Share and discuss these episodes with others to explore how deeper engagement of people with lived experience can improve child welfare policy and practice for better family, children, and youth outcomes.​ This podcast was created by the Capacity Building Center for States under Contract No. HHSP233201500071I, funded by the Children’s Bureau, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The opinions expressed by individuals quoted do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Children’s Bureau.

​​Learn how welcoming change, listening to people with lived experience, and sharing the workload can help to develop and empower young leaders and improve the child welfare system. Co-host Tony Parsons talks with Judy Tudor, Assistant Director of Clark County Department of Children and Family Services, and Madison Sandoval-Lunn, the Center’s Family and Youth Empowerment Program Area Manager about sharing power by recognizing and acknowledging one’s own power and the power in others, and how they have done it throughout their careers. This is the first part of their hour-long conversation continued in Episode 3. Share and discuss these episodes with others to explore how deeper engagement of people with lived experience can improve child welfare policy and practice for better family, children, and youth outcomes. This podcast was created by the Capacity Building Center for States under Contract No. HHSP233201500071I, funded by the Children’s Bureau, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The opinions expressed by individuals quoted do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Children’s Bureau.

This initial episode introduces the series cohosts, lived experience consultants for the Capacity Building Center for States Tony Parsons and Jamie Brooks, as they talk about their own experiences, their hopes for the series, and the meaning behind commonly used terms like “lived experience,” “lived expertise,” and “sharing power.” Discuss this episode with others to come to a common understanding of the concepts essential to sharing power in child welfare. This podcast was created by the Capacity Building Center for States under Contract No. HHSP233201500071I, funded by the Children’s Bureau, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The opinions expressed by individuals quoted do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Children’s Bureau.

Listen to an attorney and a parent ally, both partners with Washington state’s child welfare system, explain how parent partner programs are an essential part of prevention services in this short podcast.

Listen to Indiana’s child welfare partners talk about what is making the shift to an upstream approach to prevention services possible in this short podcast.

Listen to advice from people with real experience standing up the Positive Parenting Program (Triple P) in North Carolina about including family voice early in the planning process, discussing non-negotiables, and enhancing communication between partners. Leaders and managers can engage staff, private providers, funders, and other system partners with this short podcast focusing on collaboration. Once engaged, take a deeper dive together into the more in depth Leading the Charge for Transformation Recorded Webinar to open dialogue about co-creating a vision for a holistic, prevention-oriented system.

In episode 7 of the podcast series How We Partner With the Community to Improve Service Options, a judge and a child welfare agency leader discuss the challenges, achievements, and strategies of the Tompkins County Family Treatment Court. This longstanding collaboration between the child welfare, substance use treatment, and judicial systems has been steadily growing its Family Treatment Court Team and improving outcomes for families since 2001.

Highlights evaluation results of the University of Illinois Child Protection Training Academy simulation training. Evaluator Ted Cross provides a summary of key findings related to child welfare investigators’ confidence in the ability to do their jobs and worker retention. This audio clip is part of a series of resources that can help child welfare training directors, design and implementation teams, and others involved in program improvement and implementation understand the benefits of and key considerations for developing and running a simulation training program.

In episode 6 of the podcast series How We Partner With the Community to Improve Service Options, child welfare agency leaders in the District of Columbia, service providers, partners in community collaboratives, and sister agencies talk about how they coordinate service planning and delivery, are culturally responsive to the community, and provide seamless services to families. Their collective focus on primary prevention “front porch and front yard” services in the community helps keep families strong and intact and narrows the agency’s “front door.”

In this introduction to the podcast series How We Partner With the Community to Improve Service Options, agency leaders talk about the changing culture of their organizations. Leaders from Kentucky discuss their Child Welfare Transformation initiative, three transformational goals, and culture of safety. Leaders from the District of Columbia discuss their Four Pillars framework and prevention services planning.

In episode 2 of the podcast series How We Partner With the Community to Improve Service Options, leaders from the District of Columbia child welfare agency and a community collaborative organization discuss their longstanding partnership. The commissioner for Kentucky's child welfare agency describes the agency’s strategic communication plan and considers the role of the agency as part of the larger child welfare system.

Episode 3 of the podcast series How We Partner With the Community to Improve Service Options explores the efforts agencies, community collaborative organizations, and others are making to bring families, youth, and communities to the table as they strive to improve the child welfare system. In Kentucky, youth from Voices of the Commonwealth communicate the needs and issues of children in foster care to the state legislature, resource partners, and child welfare agency staff. In the District of Columbia, community collaborative organizations connect regularly with families to find out what's working and identify gaps.

Episode 4 of the podcast series How We Partner With the Community to Improve Service Options explores a family-focused program that embodies many of the changes that Kentucky wants to see throughout its child welfare system. The Sobriety Treatment and Recovery Teams, or START, program demonstrates a shift in organizational culture to focus on family and serves as an example of a truly collaborative team that uses early intervention and a shared decision-making model to work with families. The program gets positive outcomes for families, the results are supported by data, and the positive changes in organizational culture spread outwards to influence the larger system.

In episode 5 of the podcast series How We Partner With the Community to Improve Service Options, child welfare agency leaders in the District of Columbia talk about how they work with partners to use their different data lenses to understand the needs of families and to structure a set of services to best meet the full spectrum of needs. In Kentucky, child welfare agency leaders describe the process of finding the story behind the numbers to transform their system.