Rise - a New York City-based organization that builds the leadership of parents whose families have been harmed by the child welfare system - works with parents to reflect on their experiences with the child welfare system and to articulate their vision for policy and practice reform. In 2016, Rise began a collaboration with Graham Windham, JCCA and ACS to strengthen parent-child visiting by training frontline staff to better understand parents’ perspectives on visits and to provide parents with information about what’s expected in visits and how they can handle common challenges.
Caseplanners reported that Rise’s parent-led training for frontline staff, videos for parents and staff, and handouts for parents (called TIPS) were effective in improving communication between parents and professionals and in guiding parents to change behaviors that were preventing them from making progress to more frequent and unsupervised visits.
• In 25 problem-solving conversations using the TIPS with parents, caseworkers reported behavior change that improved visit quality in 22 parents.
• As one caseplanner put it: “I would describe the TIPS as stepping stones to move in the right direction and build a positive relationship.”
This implementation guide lays out what the agencies and Rise together found effective. It includes planning, training and evaluation resources so that other agencies can bring the TIPS approach into frontline practice.
