Preventing Maltreatment in Care (MIC) and ensuring children’s safety is the responsibility of all Child Welfare staff across all Programs. Assessing safety is an ongoing process that is continuous throughout the entire time a child is in DHS custody. We cannot prevent all instances of MIC from occurring. However, qualitative research supports that we have many opportunities to obtain adequate information regarding children’s safety in care, but we are sometimes missing these opportunities.
In this course, we will explore these opportunities, so we can improve in:
- Preventing MIC from occurring
- Recognizing when a child may be experiencing MIC
- Intervening quickly if we become aware of MIC or conditions that can contribute to MIC
Competencies
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
- Define MIC and its two measures
- Recognize factors that contribute to MIC and Child Welfare staff’s responsibilities in preventing MIC
- Identify MIC risk factors specific to individual placement types and populations of children
- State actions to take if there are concerns about a potential or approved resource provider’s ability to safely care for a child
- Explain procedures to follow in monthly contacts to assess children’s safety and needs
- Describe the importance and expectations of communication between Programs regarding safety issues
- Exercise critical thinking skills as part of the Child Welfare team to help ensure children remain safe in their placements
Additional Information
This is an Annually Required Training
Approximate duration: 1 hour
Module titles:
- Introduction
- Module 1: MIC Overview
- Module 2: Assessing Before Placement
- Module 3: Quality Monthly Contacts
- Module 4: Assessing After Placement
Credit for course is not given until three post-training Booster activities are completed.
Intended Audience
This is for Child Welfare Specialists, Lead Workers, Supervisors, Field Managers, Program Staff and District Directors and Contract Workers