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University of Wyoming

WyoE Family Care Training Institute:

A training Institute of the

Wyoming Education and

Social Research Institute

 

Hats On!  System of Care for Children and Families

 

Hats On!  Is a new 2008 education and training program of the Wyoming Department of Health, Mental Health, and Substance Abuse, that supports the SAGE, UPLIFT, and Child Mental Health Waiver initiates for children and families in Wyoming.  Hats On! Is a collaborative initiative with the WyoE Family Care Training Institute in the Division of Social Work at the University of Wyoming.  The goal for Hats On! is to design a series of training modules, delivered through video conferencing and face-to-face, that improves the system of behavioral/mental health care to families their children in Wyoming. 

This Hats On! program will be initiated in three phases in part due to funding time frames and to create an initial start-up phase.  The initial Planning and Pilot Phase (PPP 1) will allow the organizing group to accomplish a number of key tasks.  Subsequent phases will expand the module design and delivery.  These phases are addressed further into this concept paper. 

Why Hats On!? A vital outcome for this education and training program is to promote successful multi-professional decision-making that addresses the behavioral and mental health needs of a child and its family.  This program will be using multi-site video conferencing regularly (several sessions each month) for delivery to trainees, in part, because face-to-face training is too expensive in rural states such as Wyoming.  The video television monitors require the creation of different training techniques to foster cross-video dialogue and discussion.  At each session, trainees will be given baseball style hats that the trainee will write their name on the hat (approximately 1 inch lettering) and their professional role, e.g. therapist, family care coordinator, GAL, etc.  Using these hats will help trainers and trainees more easily read the information on the hat, and, thus, identify what types of trainees are in the training session, fostering a shared learning experience across video monitors.  Hopefully, the hats can be ordered with the collaborator names embroidered on to the hats, e.g. UPLIFT, SAGE, WyDept of HMNSA, WyoE Fam Inst. 

Introduction to University-based Training Institute

The development of the WyoE Family Care Training Institute as a training program of the University of Wyoming’s Division of Social Work is proposed in this concept paper to meet the vision of creating an on-going training program for the State of Wyoming that reaches the widest-ranging practice audience that works diligently to meet the socio-emotional and socio-economic needs of families, their children, their teens, their aging family members, and those individuals who live without direct family support.  These client/participant/consumers of social programs and social programs have personal and psycho-social needs that limit their ability to function outside of the array of programs that make of the professional social services community.  Some individuals are engaged in mandated programs and services while others are voluntarily utilizing social service programs.  This provider community includes public and private providers, and professionally educated and paraprofessional providers. 

 

The first collaborative training program in this new WyoE Family Care Training Institute would be developed with SAGE Initiative which includes the UPLIFT Program and SAGE pilot sites.  These are specific programs in the WY Department of Health, Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services Division. 

 

The focus of this first collaborative training venture would be to provide quality education and training modules that address 1) the current underlying philosophy and practice principles of child mental health systems of care within the context of earlier mental health policies and initiatives, 2) the Wyoming SAGE Initiative, and 3) the core values underlying Wyoming’s SAGE Initiative which includes family-driven practice, youth-guided practice, community-based practice, and culturally and linguistically competent practice.  Included in this curriculum is the 4) role and function of Family Care Coordinators and training modules that prepare these coordinators.  Additionally, this curriculum must 5) address the Child Mental Health Waiver program. 

 

Training Audiences and Training Modules

A goal for this training area is to be able to offer regularly scheduled, accessible training for Wyoming’s family care coordinators and others who need to advance quality mental health care for children and their families.  These additional trainee audiences include Department of Family Services (DFS) workers, mental health providers at community mental health programs, at treatment programs, GALs, other legal specialists and attorneys, and those offering private mental health services.  Additionally, school social workers/counselors may be an important audience for these training modules as well as guardian ad litems (GAL’s) and juvenile justice workers.  Developing training programs that are offered on a regular basis is also critical to building a larger cadre of Family Care Coordinators throughout the state and sustaining their competence in this difficult area of practice. 

 

Developing training programs that are replicable is equally vital.  Training modules would be delivered in two formats—on-line video compressed television delivery through the University’s educational outreach system and in-person delivery with at least one trainer.  Training modules will be developed as 2-3 hour modules where possible so that access and time spent by attendees is realistic.  Using the University’s outreach network allows potential trainees to attend training at up to 14 sites throughout the state.  Training that is provided in-person will more likely be 4-6 hour training programs due to the cost for such training and the expectation that in-person training modules will work on skill-building for the training participants. 

 

When training programs are delivered to UW Outreach sites (14 sites exist throughout the state), we will use Training Hosts to welcome the trainees, give them some initial training instructions, and be available during the training to support the training curriculum delivery whether that includes facilitating trainee discussions, collecting training evaluations, etc.  It has been suggested that we consider using Family Care Coordinators who could be given a small “honorarium” for serving in this role.  This use of Training Hosts also gives credibility to the emerging pool of Family Care Coordinators who need to be engaged with the larger system of care providers. 

 

The WyoE Family Care Training Institute would create an infrastructure for planning and scheduling all training programs as well as developing an on-line registration system using access as the data base.  Using the UW Conferences and Institutes office, Hats On! will be able to offer a registration and tracking system that will be reliable for registrants, will be able to manage post-training certificates to attendees, and provide email notifications as needed.  The services of Conferences and Institutes will be negotiated and supervised by the WyoE Family Care Training Institute.