Integrated Safety-Organized Practice Last updated: May 11, 2012 Integrated Safety-Organized Practice Module Two: Three Questions to Organize Your Practice This session is designed to move from a broad overview of the integrated practice model, Safety-Organized Practice, to a more focused discussion about how to ask questions to make rigorous, balanced assessments. Children’s Research Center A nonprofit social research organization and division of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency www.nccd-crc.org www.nccd-crc.org

Interviewing for Safety and Danger Last updated: May 11, 2012 Module Subject 1 Interviewing for Safety and Danger 2 Three Questions to Organize Your Practice 3 Small Voices, Big Impact: Keeping Children at the Center of the Work 4 Solution-focused Inquiry 5 Introduction to Mapping 6 Harm Statements, Danger Statements and Safety Goals 7 Mapping With Families 8 Safety Networks 9 Safety Planning 10 Landing Safety-Organized Practice in Everyday Work 11 Organizational Environments: Reflection, Appreciation, and Ongoing Learning 12 Summary and Looking to the Future PURPOSE To show where we are in the process.

Agreements “Try on.” Everyone always has the right to pass. Last updated: May 11, 2012 Agreements “Try on.” Everyone always has the right to pass. Know that silence is a contribution. We agree to share airtime and stick to time limits. We agree to speak personally, for ourselves as individuals. We agree to disagree and avoid making assumptions or generalities. We agree to allow others to finish speaking before we speak and avoid interrupting and side conversations. We will work together to hold to these agreements and authorize the trainer to hold us to them. PURPOSE Trainers can make use of this if they wish or pass if they wish. It can be useful in a series to remind participants of their agreements for the first few sessions and check back to see if people still feel OK about them. If anyone offered a tweak or change last time it is good to list it here. As the series continues it may not be necessary to remind people of these. If you have a challenging session where people are talking over each other, it may be useful to bring back this slide. EXAMPLE These are the agreements we reviewed last time. Remember that these are to help guide us in how we work together in these sessions. Do these still work for people? Anything else we need to add or check in about?

Our Thinking Draws From the Legacy of Others Last updated: May 11, 2012 Our Thinking Draws From the Legacy of Others Insoo Kim Berg Steve de Shazer Andrew Turnell CRC Staff Steve Edwards Sonja Parker Insoo Kim Berg and Steve de Shazer created the Solution-focused Therapy approach. Andrew Turnell and Steve Edwards created the Signs of Safety approach and wrote the book Signs of Safety. Sonja Parker created the Safety House and has done a lot of work with Safety Networks and Safety Planning. CRC staff bring the Structured Decision Making® (SDM) system to the table. Rob Sawyer and Sue Lohrbach brought SofS and the SDM ® system to Olmstead County, MN, and Sue created harm and danger statements and they took mapping to a new level. Susie Essex wrote Working With Denied Child Abuse with Andrew Turnell. Nicki Weld created Three Houses. Carver County, MN, staff have done a lot of work with Signs of Safety. John Vogel, Sophia Chin and Heather Meitner have brought the SDM system and Signs of Safety to Massachusetts, and they created the four-quadrant map. Rob Sawyer Sue Lohrbach Susie Essex Nicki Weld Carver County John Vogel Sophia Chin Heather Meitner …and we hope YOU will continue to build on these ideas and approaches.

Reminder: What is this Series About? Last updated: May 11, 2012 Safety is: Actions of protection taken by the caregiver that mitigate the danger, demonstrated over time. PURPOSE To quickly remind people about the purpose of the overall series and to continue to reinforce the idea that safety is an action. It also helps you catch up anyone who missed the first session. In this module, asking the family and their network the three questions will help us to get a better sense of child safety. EXAMPLE Folks who were here last time will remember that this is a series focused on Safety- Organized Practice and the integration of the SDM system and assessments with strength- and solution-based approaches to the work such as SofS. When we bring these together we get an approach we would call Safety-Organized Practice—practice where all our work ultimately lands on helping families and communities enhance their protection of children. In this approach safety is not just a noun—it is a verb, an action, and action we are looking to see demonstrated over time. Adapted from Boffa, J., & Podesta, H. (2004) Partnership and risk assessment in child protection practice, Protecting Children, 19(2): 36–48. Turnell, Andrew & Susie Essex Working with Denied Child Abuse, Open University Press, 2006. 

Let’s Review and Reflect! Last updated: May 11, 2012 Let’s Review and Reflect! Let’s Review and Reflect! What have you tried from the module last month? What worked well? What were your challenges? How did you handle those challenges? PURPOSE To review the last module, show how the concepts weave together and ensure transfer of learning. TRAINER NOTE As people report about their experiences, take note of what they are saying so you can build on their experiences as you share the new content in this module. Pay particular attention to how they handled their challenges and see if you can make suggestions in this module about where there might be challenges and how they can build on their strengths from last month. One idea is to have participants write down their experiences on notecards. On one side of the notecard they can write down what worked well when they tried this new practice. On the other side of the notecard they can write down a challenge they had. These notecards can be collected and some can be read out loud, or participants can volunteer to read their cards. The notecards can be collected and posted on a storyboard in your office.

The Essential Question Last updated: May 11, 2012 The Essential Question What is the essential question of this work? PURPOSE To help the group begin to reach an overall agreement on the purpose of their work (safety for the child) and to help the group understand the purpose of this module. It will be much easier to present the material if there is some group agreement that child safety is essential. It also allows you to bring the group back to this focus if there is drift later. The goal of the exercise is to encourage a large-group conversation. The hope is that through this conversation, the group can come to the beginning of some agreement that safety of the child is the most important issue to address. FLOW Do not be afraid to take a little time and let people struggle through other questions. EXAMPLE “By way of getting into the material, let me ask a question. Before you go home at night, before you leave a home visit, what is the key question—the essential question—to which you need to know the answer?” People often will come up quickly with: “Is the child safe?” We will ask, “What else?” Not necessarily stopping when it comes up. Sometimes we will throw out questions that clearly are not correct, such as, “Is the parent drinking?” or “Does the parent have a mental illness?” etc. Then circle back around, asking if anything really is as important as the child safety question. Once you feel you have gotten as much as you can from this conversation (usually no more than five minutes, although once in a while a longer conversation happens and that is not always bad), advance to next slide.

The Essential Question Last updated: May 11, 2012 The Essential Question What is the essential question of this work? Are the children safe? Try to reach agreement with the group. “Can we agree that the most important question to organize all of child protection work is: ‘Is the child safe?’”

The Essential Question Last updated: May 11, 2012 The Essential Question What is the essential question of this work? Are the children safe? How do we get an answer to this question? EXAMPLE How do we know? No scanning device, thermometer or laboratory test can tell us whether a child is safe. The only way to know is to observe and inquire. But what questions do you ask? What information do you seek? It is worth taking a moment with the group to get examples here. What do people do? They look. But often it is through conversation. With who? The parents, the child, other people who know the family, etc. This module really is about a process for engaging parents, children and other people important to the family in conversations about the children’s safety. There are many ways to have these conversations. This is just one model, and we will be interested as we go in how other people do this.

Three Questions that Organize THE INTERVIEW Last updated: May 11, 2012 Three Questions that Organize THE INTERVIEW What are we worried about? What is working well? What needs to happen? PURPOSE Set the framework for the day and reintroduce three questions. EXAMPLE Recall that last time we talked about a rigorous, balanced assessment and introduced these three basic questions as guides for helping us with our work. At their most basic, both Signs of Safety and SDM assessments can be boiled down to these three questions. Every interview and every stage in the life of a case (Intake, Family Services, CIC) needs to cover these three main issues. And while they are very simple questions, sometimes in the heat of the moment—in the middle of a complicated assessment or home visit—it can be helpful to have simple maps or guides to remind us where we want to go. The details of how we ask these questions and what content to focus on will change, but these are the three most central questions. These can also serve as a way of preparing the caregivers, family members, collaterals and even the children for the interview. When we tell them, “I’m going to be asking you a lot of questions, but they all boil down to these three…” we help prepare the interviewee. It starts us off on the right foot for collaboration and better helps them prepare to participate. BRIEF EXERCISE Hand out the SDM Policy and Procedures Manual. Each SDM assessment could be “boiled down” to each of the questions. Can folks see where these three questions come out in the SDM safety assessment? (Safety Threats = What are we worried about? Protective Capacities = What is working well? Safety Plan and Interventions = What needs to happen?) Can people see these questions in the SDM probability assessment? (SCORED Risk Items = What are we worried about? UNSCORED Risk Items = What is working well? Guidance to open/close case = What needs to happen?)

What are we worried about? Last updated: May 11, 2012 What are we worried about? Caregiver Behavior Impact on the child PURPOSE Introduce notion of impact on child. EXAMPLE Today we will explore ways to go deeper with the first two questions: “What are we worried about?” and “What is working well?” We will begin with ‘What are we worried about?’ We can worry about a lot of things in families. But we want to use this framework as a way to focus our inquiry where it should be for child protective services. The key elements should be: Caregiver: In child protection, if a stranger on the street, a teacher or even an uncle who does not live with the child hurts the child, we may be saddened by it, but it may not require action by a child protection service. Behavior: The caregiver has done something or failed to do something. It is a specific behavior. Can we get good at naming what that is? Impact: There must be some significant impact on the child. What is it? Can we describe it? How can we see it? Who can we talk to? All of our work should be organized around this and we should be able to articulate this about any case we have open. What was the caregiver action? What was the impact on the child? Think about your current cases. Can you fit your current cases into this flow? Can we try a few examples? TRAUMA CONNECTION Notice we are keeping our “trauma lens” on as we do this, so when we think about “impact on the child” it is worth asking: Is part of that impact a reaction to trauma? How could we be mindful of that when we interview a child or a parent? Is the impact traumatic for the child? How do we keep that in our thoughts as we engage and interview??

When Asking “What Are We Worried About?”, Use Questions That… Last updated: May 11, 2012 When Asking “What Are We Worried About?”, Use Questions That… 1. Surface behavioral descriptions; move past vagueness, generalizations, jargon. 2. Get the perspectives of all the family members, especially the children: “If your children were here right now, what would they say worries them?”” 3. Stay connected to the heart of the interview: What is the impact of the caregiver’s actions on the child? 4. Remember the content you need to acquire: What will you need to know in order to make best use of the SDM tools? PURPOSE Continue to deepen the group’s hold on the idea of “impact.” EXAMPLE It is easy to get in the middle of an interview and get carried on waves of information. You may follow up on things that have already been said, latch onto things that seem important at the time, then return to the office with the realization that you have a lot of information, but it may not all be relevant, and you may not have what you need. These tips can help us plan in advance and create important questions “on the fly” when needed. First, in all of the vital areas, we need questions that surface behavioral descriptions, not just headlines, jargon and vague statements full of implications and innuendo. If a topic has been introduced and you realize you are unclear of the who, what, when, where and how of it, you will need more questions. Next, remember that any bit of information from one person’s view is only that—one person’s view. For critical areas, we need to know the views of all family members. This includes the very important views of the children, and we will spend almost all of the next module on strategies for doing that. When parents are telling you about their own lives, it is important to bring the conversation around to the impact on the child. Parent information is important to child protection to the extent that it reveals the impact on the child. Getting more detail, more points of view, and extending conversation about parent behavior to understand impact on the child can substantially increase the scope of the interview. It’s important to stay focused so that we do not collect all of this rich detail on every area of family life. Know where you are in terms of the key decision at hand, and rely on the relevant SDM assessment to help narrow your interview in useful ways. Determine the right tool to use before you go out and use the items on that assessment to create a frame through which you will look and ask questions. You do not need to limit yourself to the items on the tool—it’s not an interview guide—but it can be an aid in helping to prioritize information. Is the impact traumatic for the child?

Generalizations vs. Behavioral Descriptions and Impact Last updated: May 11, 2012 Generalizations vs. Behavioral Descriptions and Impact “She is mentally ill.” How do they know? What are the caregiver behaviors are associated with it? When do those behaviors show themselves? How do those behaviors impact the child? How do you know? How do you find out? What does the child know? What has the child seen? What are you worried is happening or will happen? PURPOSE To continue to make the point about impact and how often we do not use words or language that have anything to do with “impact on the child.” EXAMPLE To go a bit deeper, we will start with the notion of surfacing behavioral detail. We often rely on headline terms to convey information about a family. “Mom is mentally ill” is one example. It is natural for us to create time-saving devices when certain terms, like “mentally ill,” stand for a fairly rich and detailed set of facts in our heads. The problem is that we each have different, though accurate, notions of this detail. Unfortunately, the standard set of details that come to mind when hearing the term “mentally ill” may not accurately reflect what is going on with this caregiver. Think: Do we open a case on every parent in our area who has a mental illness? (Actually get them to answer.) Why not? (See if they begin to say that the vast majority of parents with mental illness adequately protect their child. Minimal or no harmful impact.) Yet we include terms like this all the time in reports and discussions with supervisors, teams and the courts, and we nod our heads as if we now know something important about this mom. We think we all agree on the meaning. To avoid falling into traps of headline terms, here are some ideas for questions to ask: Trainer Note: Go over these questions as examples. Ask for other ideas.

Generalizations vs. Behavioral Descriptions and Impact Last updated: May 11, 2012 Generalizations vs. Behavioral Descriptions and Impact “He’s an alcoholic.” What does he drink? When does he drink? Where is the child when he drinks? What are the caregiver behaviors associated with it? When do those behaviors show themselves? How do those behaviors impact the child? How do you know? How do you find out? PURPOSE Continue to help bring home the point. EXAMPLE Here is another example: Do we open a case on every parent in our area who is an alcoholic? Why not? What helps us to distinguish? Rather than simply stopping with “He’s an alcoholic,” we need to inquire about specific behavioral detail regarding impact on the child. BRIEF DISCUSSION Ask the group: What do you think about this? Do we use language like this? What is the danger for us as an organization if we use words like this in our supervision, in our court reports, in our conversations with parents?

Last updated: May 11, 2012 What Is Working Well? If we do not know “what is working well” we cannot know how worried to be. Ask questions that rigorously surface the history of protection—and how this can be applied to the safety of the children going forward. PURPOSE A reminder of the importance of asking this question and connecting to the rigorous, balanced assessment. EXAMPLE This is the second question and we really want to start thinking about that rigorous, balanced assessment. Remember, if we ask only about the history of the harm and not about the history of protection, we don’t know how worried we should be. If we inquire deeply about the history of protection—times the parent was able to respond to danger and safety threats—and we find he/she has not done very much in response, that is really important for us to know. And if we inquire deeply about times the parent was able to protect his/her child, and we learn there have been many times, that also is really good for us to know.

Looking for what’s working well Last updated: May 11, 2012 Looking for what’s working well D E P R S I O N O F ME D S Her father: physically abusive, dangerous Suicide attempt by gas in the kitchen while the children were home D V Foster care Poverty Past Present Future PURPOSE (Next two slides) Bring home the point about the importance of seeking out what is working well. EXAMPLE Those of you who were here last time will remember the story of Cheryl (very quick recap if you have lots of people who missed last time). When we think about Cheryl’s story we can fall into the practice of only asking about and listening for the history of the harm and danger. It is understandable that we do this—we are listening to ‘scary’ things and we were trained to track those items in our listening. But we can begin to do more (next slide).

Looking for what’s working well Last updated: May 11, 2012 Looking for what’s working well D E P R S I O N O F ME D S Her father: physically abusive, dangerous Suicide attempt by gas in the kitchen while the children were home D V Foster care Poverty Past Present Future PURPOSE Bring home the point about the importance of seeking out what is working well. (part 2) EXAMPLE We can begin to listen for the “empty spaces.” Solution-focused work calls this “listening for exceptions to the problem”—times the problem or the harm could have shown itself, but somehow the caregiver did something to avert it. These moments are critical, both for our ability to make a connection to the caregiver and for our assessments. In our connection with the parents, if parents feel like we see them fully—as people with both worries and successes—they are more likely to work with us. There are no guarantees, but the best outcomes indicator we have in child welfare is good working relationships. Can people see how this practice might help with the good working relationships? In our assessments, we also can do better, and have a better context to know how worried we should be when we see both the worries and successes. TRAINER NOTE This is a frequent place for responses of “We do this already.” Good questions to ask the group are: “How balanced are we in these kinds of practices? Do we spend equal amounts of assessment time on these two questions? Should we? What is the balance you do now? What is optimal? If our families were here right now—the parents and the kids—what would they say about how we are doing on this practice?” What is working well?

“What Is Working Well?” Caregiver Behavior Impact on the child Last updated: May 11, 2012 “What Is Working Well?” Caregiver Behavior Impact on the child PURPOSE Working well, like worries, stays focused on impact. EXAMPLE Just like with the “worries,” we are likely to hear many answers to this question. All of it may be important, but only some of it is relevant to child welfare work. Are we most interested that a child is good at basketball? That a parent is good at crossword puzzles? Those may be things that are “working well” but they are not our focus. We should begin sorting and listening through the “working well” for what the parents are doing that has a positive or protective impact on the child. TRAINER NOTE Depending on time, rather than giving the above examples, you could try to surface examples from the group. Can you tell me about a “working well” in one of your families that is really making a difference, that you can tell is making an “impact on the child?” Can you tell me a “working well” that is not having much impact?

Generalizations vs. Behavioral Descriptions and Impact Last updated: May 11, 2012 Generalizations vs. Behavioral Descriptions and Impact “She’s stable.” Stable meaning what? Stable from what? What are the caregiver behaviors associated with being stable? When do those behaviors show themselves? How do those behaviors impact the child? How do you know? How do you find out? PURPOSE Shows that in the “working well” we can still use language that does not tell us anything at all. EXAMPLE Just like in the “worries,” we need to be rigorous about getting behavioral detail regarding what is working well. In this example, what does “stable” mean? How is it impacting the child? Is it protecting the child? Does it have anything to do with the child? Trauma?

Last updated: May 11, 2012 What Needs to Happen? “People support what they have had a hand in creating.” - Margaret Wheatley PURPOSE A very brief entry into the third question. EXAMPLE Once we know “what we are worried about” (and the caregiver’s actions that are having a harmful impact on the child) and “what is working well,” we are in a position to begin to think through “what needs to happen?” We can utilize the SDM tools for guidance to answer this question. Are we at a specific decision point? How would the tool guide us in this decision? Each SDM tool has a decision tree or “logic” that helps shape each decision. We may not agree with where the tool takes us, but it always can help frame the information and help us with the important conversations that need to take place in the office first. Equally important is that we ask families what they think needs to happen, and that we begin to help them think through the implications of our assessments. When our three questions and our assessments become “assessments with” rather than just “assessments on” the family, we can begin to jointly develop plans that help families move toward their goals and achieve new safe actions that address our worries. Organizational theorist Margaret Wheatley captures this neatly with this quote: “People support what they have had a hand in creating.” BRIEF DISCUSSION What has been your experience with this? Do you find a difference when our case plans, our “what needs to happen,” take the families’ own wishes into account? What is the difference between making a plan with the family and slapping one down on the kitchen table?

What Needs to Happen? ONE WAY TO BEGIN Last updated: May 11, 2012 What Needs to Happen? ONE WAY TO BEGIN Most 10 Least PURPOSE Introduce scaling questions as a way to begin shared goal making. EXAMPLE One way to begin a conversation about what needs to happen is to formulate a scaling question. Scaling questions do something very subtle—they take what is often a “yes/no” question, like “Do you think your child is safe when your boyfriend is around?” and put it on a scale where people can express nuance and ambivalence. Scaling questions are typically framed using a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 = the thing you are trying to move away from (often danger); and 10 = the thing you are moving toward (safety). Using this pattern helps avoid confusion. It is important to know two things: The numbers on the scale have no real meaning. Scaling question answers are not evidence, and are not based on research. They simply represent each person’s relative notion of how things line up. The second thing is that the numbers people provide are not nearly as important as the follow-up questions you can ask: (advance slide)

What Needs to Happen?: SCALING to SMALL ACTION STEPS Last updated: May 11, 2012 What Needs to Happen?: SCALING to SMALL ACTION STEPS Most 10 Least On a scale from 0 to 10, with 0 being “my children were in real danger when I turned on that gas,” and 10 being “my child was always 100% safe and could never be hurt when I turned on the gas,” where do you think things were that night? Concretely, what did you do that night that is letting you give it as high a number as you are giving it? What steps did you take to protect your children when you turned on the gas? At what number would you optimally want things to be? What action would you need to take in the future to get there? What would be the very first step? What number do you imagine I (or my supervisor) think things were at that night? What action do you think we would need to see you taking for our number to go up? PURPOSE Showing ways a scaling question leads into dialogue, part 2. EXAMPLE Here you can see (from the Cheryl example again) that the scaling questions themselves are just a way to begin a conversation. What becomes really useful are the kinds of follow-up questions you can ask to help people think through their actions, the impact they had on the child and what needs to happen next. BRIEF DISCUSSION Has anyone used scaling questions in this group? Where do you use them? How have they worked for you? Do they help at all in framing the “what needs to happen” question? TRAINER NOTES What is missing in this example is a “what needs to happen to move things up by one” type of question. It is not really appropriate here—if Cheryl moved her number up by one, it is likely the children would still have been in grave danger. The “At what number would you optimally want things to be” and “what number do you think my supervisor and I would want things to be” is a better fit here. But you can still make the point that in many planning conversations (like DV) a “what would need to happen to move things up by one” is going to be a really useful and effective question for starting with small change. 2. It is very fair, given our focus on trauma, to see if asking this question would likely be a trigger for Cheryl. In the actual case, Cheryl and Phil built a good working relationship, and made an agreement where it was OK to ask questions and talk about what happened that night. As a result, this question would not have upset her in that context. A tweak that might be less likely to provoke a trauma reaction would be “0 to 10 with 0 being my children were in real danger that night” leaving off exact details of what happened). Most importantly would be to make an agreement with Cheryl to be able to ask questions about what happened that night and to let her know it is OK if she needs to take a break, stop, etc.

Exercise I: Surfacing the Generalizations We Live by Every Day Last updated: May 11, 2012 Exercise I: Surfacing the Generalizations We Live by Every Day In small groups: Make an exhaustive list of all the generalizations, labels, and generally imprecise descriptions we use every day to describe families. Start by taking a piece of paper and dividing it in half—the “working well” and the “worries.” Then come up with a list of all the common phrases and descriptions we use every day about families that tell us nothing about impact! Keep it real! PURPOSE Exercise to help bring home the point about imprecise use of language that does not speak to impact on the child. TRAINER NOTE This is a fun exercise and it can be helpful to approach it playfully. Ask the group to form smaller groups—they will need large post-it paper and markers. Have them list all the generalizations, “sloppy” language, jargon, and labels we all use every day. If you want, you can remind them of the three we have covered— “She is mentally ill,” “He’s an alcoholic,” and “He/she is stable.” Ask them to divide the paper in half and come up with a list of these generalizations, both under “worries” and “what is working well.” Once the list is done (give them about five to 10 minutes to do this), ask each group to share their top three to five from both the “worries” and “working well” column with each other. It is OK to acknowledge that we will continue to use this language in some places as shorthand, but what is the effect if this is the only way we talk about the work?

Exercise Part II: Interviewing for “the Worries” Last updated: May 11, 2012 Exercise Part II: Interviewing for “the Worries” Form groups of three: Interviewer Interviewee Coach/observer The interviewer should ask questions of interviewee about a family with whom he/she or a supervisee are working, with the goal of reaching an exhaustive list of all the worries, but they need to be described in the following format: PURPOSE Continue initial exploration about impact. Now that they have a list of the “do not,” we have them try to “do instead.” TRAINER NOTE The second part of this assignment asks participants to use the list they just made to police themselves. They should do an interview (like a case consult or supervision session, not a role play) and see if they can get to caregiver/behavior/impact on the child. It is important to instruct them, but try to stay away from the words they just identified as being jargon-like. Do this for five to 10 minutes, then debrief as a large group. Were there worries they were unable to describe as caregiver/behavior/impact? Were they able to describe the impact on the child? What questions helped to surface it? Is it hard to do this type of interview? Is it hard not to use the jargon words? Do they think there is a benefit?   If the group struggled to describe some issues as C/B/I it is useful to ask: What other information would we need to find out if there is impact? Who would we ask? (Often it is the child!) Not having impact doesn’t mean we should not be involved, but is it useful to think twice about those cases? To make sure we are really looking at the SDM risk scores? If we have no impact and low/moderate risk, are we still as worried? Caregiver Behavior Impact on the child Try not to use any of the vague or imprecise terms you just came up with!

What Information Is Needed? Check the relevant SDM® tool! Last updated: May 11, 2012 What Information Is Needed? Check the relevant SDM® tool! All information Information learned Information needed for decision at hand PURPOSE To showcase how the SDM tool can help sharpen the extent of the information we need to help make good decisions. EXAMPLE As we continue to think through how “Caregiver/behavior/Impact” can help us sharpen our inquiry, we can also turn to the SDM system to help with the same thing. The questions on the SDM safety assessment (for example) are designed to remind workers about the most critical pieces of information needed to make good decisions. The interviewing process and focus on impact on the child is a way to answer these critical questions with the family, so they can be partners in making decisions as much as possible. But there are always many more things we could ask in any interview—some conversations could help while others may be a waste of time. Checking the relevant SDM assessment before we leave the office can help sharpen our three questions. Ask yourself: Are we at a key decision point? What is the relevant SDM tool designed to help us think at that moment? What area of inquiry do we need to be sure to cover with our three questions when we start talking with the family? It does not mean we have to confine ourselves to that point, but it can be a time-saver and sharpen our questions. Let’s practice this and see what you think! (next slide)

Exercise Part III: Connecting With SDM® Last updated: May 11, 2012 Exercise Part III: Connecting With SDM® Choose one of those worries—perhaps the one that concerns you most. Look at the SDM safety assessment and choose the item that most corresponds to that worry. Look at the definition that goes with that item. In your interview, did you gather enough details to know if you should score that item? What else would you need to ask about, if anything? PURPOSE Bring the connection back to the SDM system, helping people remember that the SDM definitions have utility not just in making the decision after our interview, but in helping to guide the interview itself. TRAINER NOTE Ask participants to stay in their groups and to choose one of the worries they just spoke about. Pull out the SDM safety assessment and look at the relevant definitions to see if they have enough information from their conversation to rule it in or out. What else would they need to ask? Do they agree it would be important to ask? Why or why not? Would this kind of question help them get that information? When debriefing, continue to make connections between the SDM system and solution-focused practice. Solution-focused practices can help with the live questions for our unique events. Solution-focused practices help to begin sorting information with C/B/I, and the SDM system can really help narrow that down.

Conclusions: Interviewing Using the Three Questions Last updated: May 11, 2012 Conclusions: Interviewing Using the Three Questions Assessment is an interaction where the kind of relationships we have will influence the kind of information we get. If people feel we are interested in them as “full people” (people who both have “worries” and things that are “working well”) we will get better information and be able to make better assessments. It is not enough to have an assessment that is solely focused on the “history of the harm”—we also need to be as equally focused on the “history of protection.” These assessments need to keep at their heart: What is the impact on the child, and what is the information we need to get the most out of the SDM assessments. When you do this, you will have a balanced, rigorous assessment. PURPOSE To summarize the main points of the module. EXAMPLE Forming relationships is critical in the work we do. Knowing the impact on the child is critical. SDM can help to determine impact. Impact can indicate potential trauma. Is the impact traumatic for the child?

*Turnell, A. and Edwards S. (1999). Signs of Safety. New York: Norton Last updated: May 11, 2012 These are some of the elements from SofS that relate to this module. Consider printing them beforehand and posting around the room. Some trainers like to put this slide up front to set the stage about which principles from SofS pertain to this module. *Turnell, A. and Edwards S. (1999). Signs of Safety. New York: Norton

Opportunities for Practice Last updated: May 11, 2012 EXAMPLE: It is important that you commit to or look at attempting some of these suggestions for practice over the next “x” weeks Your Early Adopter, supervisor and/or coach are available for support via phone or emails during that time Your Early Adopter, supervisor and/or coach can also provide a more formal in-person follow up in “x” amount of time through attending a unit meeting or providing opportunities for lunch and learn, etc. HANDOUT Provide the “Things To Try” handout to the social workers and the Coaching and Supervision Tips to the supervisors. Explain that at each session, a similar handout will be provided with ideas for simple things to try. Participants can use this to keep track of what they have tried, and maybe even note what went well and what did not so they can learn from their experiences. TRAINER NOTE Some trainers like to move this slide to the front of the presentation so trainees can be thinking about which thing they will try during the next month.

One Last Thing: Thinking Ahead Last updated: May 11, 2012 One Last Thing: Thinking Ahead In pairs: What is one thing you heard today that you value or makes sense to you? What are you already doing to put that into action in your work? What else would you like to do to “land it” even more in your work between now and next time? PURPOSE Help people make the transition from training to actual work. TRAINER NOTE After three straight exercises you may have a group of tired people. Make this an “in-the-moment” decision, but this is a useful slide for ending these small modules when folks have energy to do it. They can be very brief conversations (two minutes), then see if you can get two to four people to share their thoughts.

Last updated: May 11, 2012 References Berg, I.K. (1994). Family Based Services: A Solution-Focused Approach. New York: W.W. Norton. Chin, S., Decter, P., Madsen, W., & Vogel, J. (2010). Enhancing Risk Assessment Through Organizational Learning: A Mid-Stream Report From Massachusetts. Protecting Children, 25(3): 7–20. Department of Child Protection. (2011). The Signs of Safety Child Protection Practice Framework. Department of Child Protection, Perth. Retrieved from http://www.signsofsafety.net/westernaustralia White, M. (2007). Maps of Narrative Practice. New York: Norton. Turnell, A., & Edwards S. (1999). Signs of Safety. New York: Norton.