2010 SWAN/IL Spring Quarterly Meetings

Thursday, April 08, 2010	Thursday, April 29, 2010

9:00:00 AM	4:00:00 PM

Pennsylvania

Dear Colleagues, The Office of Children, Youth and Families (OCYF), the prime contractor for the Statewide Adoption and Permanency Network (SWAN) and the Pennsylvania Independent Living (IL) Program are pleased to announce the agenda for the 2010 spring quarterly meetings. The general morning session of the spring quarterly, “Strengthening Families: Making and Keeping Connections,” will explore the importance of establishing and supporting ongoing connections with siblings and kin for children and older youth in the child welfare system. Best practice research will be shared, and strategies to find and maintain sibling and kin connections will be identified. The first of the trainings on the new SWAN portal will run concurrently with the morning’s general session. This session, for county agencies only, will run for three hours, beginning at 9:00 a.m. This is a comprehensive training on how to navigate the new SWAN portal, including both existing and new applications. The new features include electronic submission of affiliate-referred family profiles, CY130’s, CY131’s and CY890’s. Additionally, agencies will learn how to use the newly-updated SWAN forms to register children and families. Attendance is limited so every county may receive the training. Registration for this training will be initiated through a separate e-mail sent to counties and affiliates by the regional technical assistants. Counties are strongly encouraged to send a representative to this training. If you register for this training, you will still need to register separately through the SWAN Web site for the rest of the 2010 spring quarterly sessions. After lunch, three concurrent workshops will be offered. The first workshop will be the new SWAN portal training for affiliate agencies. This session will focus on affiliate agencies and their use of the new SWAN portal. As with the counties, affiliates will also register for this session through a link provided in an e-mail by their regional technical assistants. Affiliates will also need to register for the rest of the quarterly meeting sessions through the SWAN Web site. Affiliate agencies are strongly encouraged to send a representative to this session. The second workshop, “Tools, Techniques and Activities to Engage Families,” explores techniques on how to reach out to a family, whether to make connections or consider permanency options. Workers must be able to engage a family and this session will provide concrete examples and tools. The workshop will discuss how various tools, techniques and activities can engage youth, families (kinship, permanent legal custodianship, adoptive, foster) and other professionals throughout the permanency process. The third workshop, “Understanding the Use of Child Profile and Child Preparation in Working with Older Youth,” will explore the purpose and uses of the Child Profile and the value of Child Preparation. With an emphasis on older youth, the workshop will cover the expectations and advantages of Child Profiles and Child Preparation. A dialogue will be encouraged among Independent Living professionals, affiliate and county workers who are using or providing these services to youth. Additionally, the SWAN bulletin directives and practice implementations for completing Child Profile addendums will be covered. SWAN affiliates are required to attend quarterly meetings. We also invite and encourage attendance by each county children and youth agency, including caseworkers, independent living workers, supervisors and administrators. Approval of continuing education credit provided through co-sponsorship with the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work, a Pennsylvania pre-approved provider of social work continuing education, is pending. Diakon/FDR will also issue certificates of training that can be credited toward the 20 hours of annual training required for all county children and youth caseworkers. Attached is the agenda and quarterly meeting registration form. You may complete the registration form on the Web site at www.diakon-swan.org or fax it to Diakon at (866) 646-5789. Please look for the e-mail from your regional technical assistant to arrive by March 8, 2010 to register separately for the portal training. We look forward to seeing you at the meeting as we continue to network for permanency on behalf of Pennsylvania’s children. Registration is now closed for FORT WASHINGTON and PHILADELPHIA. Please go to walk-in registration.

2010_Spring_Quarterly_Agenda

2010_Spring_Quarterly_Registration_form

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