Articles Tagged training, page 1

  • A New Resource to Empower Families

    Meaningful family engagement recognizes that families are the experts of their own experiences, assures their active role and voice, and empowers them to make joint decisions to ensure their children’s safety, permanency, and well-being.

    Posted on June 3rd, 2025

  • Developing Families through the Family Profile Process

    If achieving permanency is a journey, then the SWAN Family Profile Unit of Service equips Pennsylvania families with everything they need—prepared, packed, and ready—to navigate that path successfully. The family profile is a crucial process that supports a family’s growth and development, ultimately equipping them to provide permanency to a child.

    Posted on April 17th, 2025

  • SWAN Portal Version 3.0 Launched

    In early 2020, SWAN IT Manager John Coutts and SWAN Contracts Administrator Lisa Stum met with a handful of affiliates and County Children and Youth agencies to discuss the SWAN Portal and its alignment with their needs. This marked the beginning of a four-year-long process to develop the SWAN Portal Version 3.0, which launched successfully on September 16, 2024.

    Posted on October 7th, 2024

  • 2024 LSI County Partner Survey Results

    The SWAN prime contractor’s Research and Quality Assurance (RQA) Division successfully deployed the 2024 SWAN LSI County Partner Survey in April 2024 to a diverse group of county staff and child welfare professionals who regularly interact with LSI paralegals (LSIPs). 

    Posted on September 23rd, 2024

  • SSW Presenter Calls for Youth-Led Culture of Care

    When Chauncey Strong, MSW took the stage at the opening of the 2024 SWAN/IL Summer Statewide Meeting, he issued a challenge to everyone in the room. “Whatever you believe will be right,” he said, “because you work to the level of your belief.”

    Posted on August 23rd, 2024

  • Permanency Conference is an Annual Dose of Encouragement

    The 32nd Annual Pennsylvania Permanency Conference at the Kalahari Conference Center was the place to be June 19-21, 2024 if you are in any way connected to child welfare and permanency. Families, professionals, advocates and others gathered for three days to learn, be uplifted and make friends and memories. 

    Posted on August 23rd, 2024

  • SWAN Prime Contractor Names New Leadership

    Over the past few months, a few individuals have been named to new management positions. Voce is pleased to announce that Tammy Hendrix, DSW, MSW, LCSW is now serving as the SWAN program administrator; Tinnesha English, MSW is now serving as the SWAN technical assistance program director; Kelly Weston is now serving as the RTA division manager for the SWAN central region; and Robert Brockman is now serving as the PAE division manager.

    Tammy Hendrix ...

    Posted on November 6th, 2023

  • June Events Celebrate Dedication, Gird Continued Work

    The network gathered in Northeast Pennsylvania for two back-to-back events in June—the SWAN/IL Summer Statewide Meeting (SSW) and the 31st Pennsylvania Permanency Conference—where celebrations and affirmations took center stage. Reading’s own, Dr. Veirdra Jackson, kicked off the week with her SSW keynote, which spoke to every person’s want and need to belong.

    Posted on August 7th, 2023

  • Spring Quarterly Meetings Detail Family Matching Service

    Members of the network gathered around the state at six spring Quarterly Meetings held regionally throughout April. The morning presentation, Exploring the SWAN Family Matching Unit of Service, was presented by technical assistance staff in each of the regions.

    Posted on May 24th, 2023

  • New SWAN Program Administrator Embodies Permanency Advocacy

    Tammy Hendrix, DSW, MSW, LCSW has been named the next SWAN program administrator, succeeding Judi Damiano, who retired February 10, 2023. Tammy has served the SWAN prime contractor in various technical assistance roles since 2004 and has worked in the network since 1994. 

    Posted on April 4th, 2023

  • Speaking through Advocacy and Impact: Recognizing Michelle

    Michelle Matthews doesn’t really like to talk about herself; however, her work and impact as the social work supervisor in foster care for Bethany Christian Services of Western PA tells her story for her. Michelle is a champion for both resource families and first families.

    Posted on April 4th, 2023

  • SWAN Winter Statewide Meeting Featured Tools, Connection

    More than 400 members of the network gathered at the Penn Stater Conference Center on January 25th and 26th for valuable training, in-person networking, and a centralized matching event. The SWAN Winter Statewide Meeting returned to in-person for the first time since 2019 after being held virtually for two years during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Posted on February 17th, 2023

  • New SWAN Unit of Service: Family Matching

    The prime contractor is pleased to announce the release of the first new SWAN unit of service in 20 years: Family Matching. This service is available to the affiliates for referral as of July 1, 2022.

    Family Matching focuses on engaging potential resource families who are waiting to be matched and developing their capacity to provide successful permanency. The Family Matching unit includes ongoing efforts in these areas as well as activities to identify a ...

    Posted on August 8th, 2022

  • Meet Rachel Kuhr: Permanency Scholar, Mentor and Advocate

    As we look forward to this summer’s Pennsylvania Permanency Conference, we invite you to get to know 2021’s Permanency Professional Award recipient, Rachel Kuhr. If you’ve ever been to a SWAN conference, statewide meeting, or central region quarterly meeting, you know Rachel. If she’s not sharing her knowledge as a presenter, she is listening intently – usually while crocheting – and asking all the right questions to achieve clarity and improve service delivery for children in out-of-home care.

    Posted on March 28th, 2022

  • Permanency Team Honored for their Dedication to a Special Three-Year-Old Boy

    Three-year-old Angel has had a unique journey to permanency. Medical needs, distant placements, and a global pandemic created some challenges for his team to solve. However, Heather Miller, Christina Cross, and Barbara Black were up to the task. These women worked tirelessly, along with the support of numerous other team members, to help Angel find his home—a place where he could have his first birthday and Christmas celebrations in a true family setting. They ...

    Posted on January 14th, 2022

  • Network Comes Together at Fall Quarterly Meetings

    For the first time since the onset of COVID-19 in March 2020, the SWAN/IL Quarterly Meetings took place in-person throughout regions of the Commonwealth, infusing a spirit of connectedness for which the network is often characterized. As Carrie Keiser, Director, Division of Programs, Office of Children, Youth and Families declared in her opening remarks, “It is SO good to be back together!”

    More than 850 attendees gathered at six regional locations and online for ...

    Posted on November 17th, 2021

  • Rates Changes and New Unit of Service Announced at 2021 SWAN Summer Statewide Meeting

    In her opening remarks to the network at the 2021 SWAN Summer Statewide Meeting, Carrie Keiser, Director, Division of Programs, Office of Children, Youth and Families (OCYF), highlighted adjustments to payment rates for SWAN units of services for service referrals made during the state fiscal year 2021-2022. The payment rates are defined in OCYF Bulletin 3350-21-02, released to the network on June 30, and archived in the SWAN Permanency Toolkit ...

    Posted on August 16th, 2021

  • SWAN Legal Training Team Continues Virtual Presentations Through Fall

    SWAN’s team of legal training specialists (LTS) has spent the past year converting and fine-tuning presentations, adapting from in-person presentations to a virtual training format to continue delivering high-quality legal trainings to child welfare professionals across the state of Pennsylvania. We were excited to see that our online trainings have been “virtually” just as popular as in-person presentations. Our team has had ...

    Posted on July 21st, 2021

  • Attendance Rates Increase, Connections Maintained through Virtual Events

    It’s been nearly one year since the COVID-19 pandemic brought in-person gatherings to an abrupt halt causing the network to shift standard events and meetings to a virtual format. While there are drawbacks and we miss the richness of face-to-face interactions, a silver lining has been the ability for more members to participate in network events and for connections among the network to be maintained.

    Posted on February 9th, 2021

  • Permanency Professional Honored for Perseverance and Passion

    Connie Snyder has been a frontline worker with Warren County Children and Youth for 13 years. In that time, she has found forever families for 64 children. While the number is itself impressive, Connie’s drive to never give up, even on the hardest-to-place children, even when her supervisor might say it’s time for plan B, is what is most impressive. Last summer, Connie received the Permanency Professional Recognition Award at the Pennsylvania Permanency Conference for her outstanding work.

    Posted on April 8th, 2020