an overview georgia program improvement plan - Department of ...

loss/trauma reactions. Content included strategies for managing disruptive behaviors before attachments are formed and managing challenging
behaviors connected with parent visits with children in care.
• Strength-based Assessment: Part One & Two– Family Assessment Skills – E. Douglas Pratt, D.S.W., LMSW. Georgia has been developing a
model of family-centered practice for over five years. This model enhances systems of care and individualized multi-agency family support networks.
While most child and family practitioners in Georgia have practical knowledge about controlling risks, effective practitioners share common skill-sets
for assessment and planning that actively involve family and other supports in ways that leave more families safely in charge of their own teams. This
two-part workshop provided participants with concrete skills and strategies to improve their assessment so they might more positively impact family
outcomes and skills in family centered assessment and the development of service plans responsive to individual and family needs.
• Substance Abuse: Reading the Signs, Recognizing the Symptoms, delivered by Karen Terry, NCAC and Candee Winfield, LPC. Participants were
able to identify the relational dynamics present within the family of an addicted person. Content included discussion of the disease concept of addiction,
identification of the symptoms associated with a diagnosis of chemical dependency and components of the alcohol and drug assessment instrument and
process.
• When Mental Health Issues Impair Parental and Family Functioning, delivered by Judy Plecko, Licensed Clinical Social Worker. This workshop
was designed to focus on the impact of mental illness on parenting capacity and to present tools and interventions to restore balance to the family
system. Participants learned how to identify issues and challenges for children when a parent has a mental illness, how to recognize specific mental
health disorders, (their risks and potential severity) and learned effective interventions for helping parents and children cope with the effect of mental
illness on the family system.
Items 42. The standards are applied to all licensed or approved foster family homes or childcare institutions receiving title IV-E or IV-B funds.
Because the standards for family foster homes licensure in the state’s public and private sectors are different, primary components of the state’s plan to bring uniformity included:
1) researching procedures used by other states to bring public and private agencies under common licensure; 2) Recommend DFCS policy regarding waivers for minimum
standards requirements for foster homes facing unusual situations and 3) recommend additional policy changes, if needed. The work group determined that waivers are granted
regarding required standards for both public and private agency foster homes. No waivers are allowed for standards established by local or state governing bodies or established
safety and health codes.
Item 44. State has in place a process for ensuring the diligent recruitment of potential foster and adoptive families that reflect the racial and cultural diversity of
children in the state for whom foster and adoptive homes are needed.
Safe Futures – A Plan for Program Improvement
Georgia Department of Human Resources
November, 2004 Quarter 8 – Table of Contents Page xxii