Introductions

The thirty nine Roundtable Participants and Presenters to the Collaboration Roundtable (2008) introduced themselves and shared their initial thoughts on both the need to collaborate and on Transformation. Andy Koster, the Executive Director of Brant, along with David Rivard, the Executive Director of the Children's Aid Society of Toronto provided the purpose and overview of this first Collaborative Round Table.
In order to encourage further dialogue on any of the presented subjects, email addresses of all those who attended are provided at the end of the listing of presentations.
One of the major contributors to the Collaboration Project, Rocci Pagnello, the Director of Services from Leeds -Grenville CAS, was unable to attend due to another agency commitment but his round table Powerpoint presentation is provided below in order to ground us with some of the important issues involved in true collaborative service to children, families and their communities. In addition, the previous Powerpoint that he presented in 2006 at the Provincial Differential Response Symposium is also attached in order to provide some additional context to our need for a collaborative approach to service.

	CollaborationPowerpointrevisedSep08
	DREvolution

 

A Context: Perspectives on Transformation and Collaboration

Gary Dumbrill was a major contributor to both Phases of the OACAS Collaboration Project and a major academic editor. Although he had been previously grounded as a front line worker and supervisor in child welfare, he provided an overview of child welfare in Ontario from his present academic perspective as a professor of social work. He has also contributed the presentation that he made previously to the field at the Differential Response Symposium.

McMaster University School of Social Work
Gary Dumbrill, Professor

	Roundtable-2008-dumbrill
	2006 CSWR pendulum

 

*Discussion and Networking*

Agency Updates Continued:

7. A Front Line Perspective on the Effects and Challenges of Transformation & Collaboration
Ottawa CAS
Michael Mulroney, Front Line Social Worker

Michael Mulroney was a member of the OACAS Collaboration Project. He works on a high risk young parent unit and also teaches child welfare at Carleton University. . Not only did he provide the first hand experiences of a Front Line Worker but he held a focus group for front line staff that was attended by approximately 40 workers in over twenty CAS agencies. In this forum, workers were asked about their hopes and fears and changes to a collaborative approach and to child protection (child welfare) in general. Their responses were used in Phase 2 of the Collaboration Project which provided some guidance to how a Collaborative environment could be attained. Michael talked at the Round Table regarding where he and other front line workers perceived collaboration and transformation to be. He stressed that many workers felt encouraged by the changes and had the feelings of truly helping children and their families. He indicated that they now thought that most people could respond to a strength based response. He and others worry about caseload sizes and the significant amount of paperwork which is still somewhat overwhelming even though it is better. He felt that the electronic recording system needed to improve and to be less repetitive. He also indicated that some of the clinical tools provided to assess clients were not actually being used to a significant degree.
Michael has been given permission to share Ottawa CAS's Clinical Framework and the documents are listed below. He also discussed at the Round table how this summer he traveled to Kansas to see Saleebey, who is the guru of Strength Based Practice. He had always liked his work but Michael wanted to find out whether he felt it was applicable to child protection since the author had never specifically linked it to this particular area of social work practice. In a two hour meeting covering a variety of topics he was given an affirmation of this application. Some of the articles from Dennis Saleebey are provided below.

	Clinical Framework document - Final version
	CF Implementation L&Q- june 3 - 08
	CF Implementation Supervision - june 3 - 08
	CF Implementation Case Planning - june 3 - 08
	CF Process Chart - june 3 - 08
	CLINICAL FRAMEWORK LEARNING PLAN - sept. - 08

	Building Strengths-based Tools for Child Protection Practice A Case of Parallel Process
	Dennis Saleebey's Five types of Questions to Assess Strengths
	Ending Social Work's Grudge Match, Problems Versus Strengths, MCMillen, Morris, Sheraden
	Introduction, Power to the People, Dennis Saleebey

 

8.  Internal Collaborations:  Looking to Integrate Transformation and to Ensure Alignment
The Catholic Children’s Aid Society of Toronto
        Bruce Leslie, Manager, Quality Assurance & Outcomes Measurement  

This is an interesting perspective on how an organization can examine itself to see how it is aligned to meet its stated goals.

Internal Collaborations

 

    9.  (a)  Making Outcomes the Starting Point for Intervention and Management
Services aux enfants et adultes de Prescott-Russell Services to Children and Adults
 Raymond Lemay, Directeur Général, Executive Director

This presentation outlines the results of a collaborative attempt by agency staff to define their own child outcomes as an organization and then to measure them on an individual case basis over time.  This is helping them to determine how the agency itself is actually performing in regard to those stated child outcome measures. There are many interesting aspects to this approach including the fact that it looks at the children themselves in a manner to which agency staff can invest.  

Starting with Outcomes2008-rev

(b)  Deciding to not use Outside Paid Resources and the Consequences

Although there was not enough time for Raymond Lemay to provide an account of this decision, he has submitted his Powerpoint presentation with the invitation for anyone to call him at Prescott-Russell for more information.

Stop Using OPRs

 

10.  An Outline of the Efforts to Create an Agency Environment Conducive to Clinical Supervision including the Development of a Clinical Supervision Manual for all Agency Staff

This is an attempt by a CAS to integrate clinical supervision for all staff using the OACAS M6A, the McMaster University Clinical Supervisor’s course (see above) in a transfer of learning approach.  It was also developed in concert with Diversity and AOP provisions and new H.R. procedures. 
The Brant Children’s Aid Society
Bob Pittman, Clinical Manager, Brant CAS

	Implementing the Brant CAS Clinical Supervision Model and Manual
	Brantmodelsupervision
	Moving Beyond the Symposium Creating a Model for Child Welfare Supervision in Ontario
	Position Paper on Diversity....final copy....
	Supervision Manual.7
	The Brant CAS policy on harassment, violence and bullying

 

      11.  A First Nation's Perspective on Adapting Differential Response and the Child Protection Standards to an Aboriginal Agency and its Communities
Weechi-it-te-win Child and Family Services   
Kathy Kishiqueb, Director of Residential Services
& Laurie Rose, Investigation Supervisor

Weechi-it-te-win Child and Family Services is a very successful child welfare agency that provides services to First Nations in areas of Treaty Three. Its unique service delivery model is well-established. This presentation shows the adaptation of government policy to an Aboriginal framework and language rather than the other way around. In this creative manner, the agency has attained a greater sense of meaningful congruency with the requirements of Transformation while attaining and then retaining, the major goal of cultural competence.

Collaboration Round Table Meeting - Toronto

 

12.  Reinforcing the use of Family Conferencing and Family Group Decision-Making
Guelph Wellington Family and Children’s Services
    Erin Harvey, Supervisor.  Daniel Moore, Executive Director

This presentation shows the results of an agency’s commitment to the use of Family Group Decision-making throughout the organization. Guelph has also provided some of its supporting documentation.

	Toronto Symposium Presentation
	F&CS Family Conferencing Logic Model
	klF&CS Advisory Group Terms of Reference

 

 

*Discussion and Wrap-up*