Central California Training Academy
Common Core for Child Welfare Managers
The Manager Core curriculum has been developed as a comprehensive series for child welfare managers, linking the themes in other levels of core to be specific to managers and to illustrate parallel process opportunities. This curriculum provides opportunities for participants to assess their knowledge, strengths, and resources and apply knowledge and critical thinking skills to real manager scenarios.
The participant exercises are designed to be relevant and applicable to child welfare managers.
This curriculum underscores the importance of different adult learning styles and provides information in a number of ways to help trainees integrate the information they are learning. The manager core curriculum, which includes participant activities is designed to integrate the knowledge and experiences of the participants and encourages them to share that knowledge and those experiences with others during the course of the training.
The following themes are recognized as central concepts and are present in each module:
- Fairness & Equity
- Self-Assessment
- Engagement
- Outcomes & Accountability
- Strength-Based Practice
- Evidence-Based and Promising Practices
Competencies for managers are identified as those that not only encompass those that are basic and first-level for supervisors but begin to lead to those higher-level competencies established for executives.
Basic competencies include:
- Oral communication
- Written communication
- Problem-solving
- Leadership
- Interpersonal skills
- Self-direction
- Flexibility
- Decisiveness
- Technical competence
First-level supervisor competencies include:
- Managing diverse workforce
- Human resources management
- Conflict management
- Teambuilding
- Influencing/Negotiating
Child Welfare Manager Timeline
As a result of this training, participants will:
- Review the various roles of a manager within an organization
- Define the function of manager as liaison with community and state partners
- Link manager core to supervisor core and executive development
- Complete a self-assessment to be used to understand strengths and challenges in the role as manager
- List the goals and themes of the manager series including the transfer of learning tools
- Recognize the importance of maintaining the integrity of the organization and the manager’s role to support this
As a result of this training, participants will:
- Explore the role of authority in relationships
- Develop a process for succession planning
- Define the boundaries of effective management
- List the steps and challenges in delegating
- Accept the importance of developing and maintaining relationships within an organization including HR
- Define steps for managing for successful performance
- Identify strategies for developing a mentoring relationship in order to develop staff
As a result of this training, participants will:
- Identify information as a management tool
- Recognize the importance of translating the big picture and mandates to supervisors
- Identify the components of a learning organization
- List steps to managing up and across programs
- Develop strategies for facilitating autonomous supervisors
- Review stages of change in order to facilitate change
As a result of this training, participants will:
- Recognize the value of teamwork
- Clarify needs of teams and identify strategies for shaping and managing a team
- Review steps in interdisciplinary collaboration
- Increase & demonstrate skills related to collaboration and conflict management
- Link positive team environment to stress management
- Develop a plan for creating a positive team environment with all teams
As a result of this training, participants will:
- Review steps in thinking in a fiscally responsible manner in order to develop, monitor, and provide oversight to budgets
- Define outcome-based management/contracting
- Identify ways to use Safe Measures as a tool for measurement of performance
- Recognize current issues related to service and performance
- Practice developing strategies to address current issues
As a result of this training, participants will:
- Review at least three decision making and problem-solving models
- Identify strategies to initiate and monitor for best practice
- Explore steps in program design, implementation, and evaluation
- Link program design to policy & procedure
- Recognize the importance of including personnel at all levels of strategic planning
- List steps in successful strategic planning
- Demonstrate presentation skills of an innovative program to include evaluation results.