Description:

Children’s Advocacy Centers (CACs) across the nation are at the forefront of addressing child maltreatment. We know that child maltreatment causes significant mental health effects on children, such as post-traumatic stress or disruptive behavior disorders. Further, as demonstrated in National Children Alliance’s (NCA’s) Thriving Kids 2019 report, evidence-based mental health services (also collectively known as evidence-based practices, or EBP) make a huge positive impact on children’s well-being.

Yet not all families served by CACs receive these critical services. Through feedback from caregivers collected under NCA’s national Outcome Measurement System (OMS), we know some families report never receiving information about mental health services for themselves or their children. Thankfully, that number is falling, but even more concerning is that many of the families who do report receiving information about treatment options for children and caregivers still fail to follow up on referrals to these essential services after visiting a CAC.

Of course, sometimes this is due to concrete barriers—time, transportation, money, or availability concerns. But alarmingly, many family members report not seeking mental health services for themselves or their children because they’re not convinced it’s necessary or important, that non-evidence-based services are just as good, or that they can go it alone. CACs can offer the best mental health services in the world, but if children and families don’t use them, they may never have the chance to fully recover from the trauma of abuse. This is the critical role of the victim advocate¹ in the CAC setting: family engagement with treatment starts and ends with advocates.

About The Project

Enhancing early engagement of families in mental health assessment and EBP is a priority for CAC leaders through NCA. To address this need, NCA is partnering with the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (OUHSC) on a new training initiative, Enhance Early Engagement Training for CAC Victim Advocates, or E3. E3 aims to increase the proportion of children and their caregivers served by CACs who engage in mental health services.

CACs and their victim advocates helped us design this program to meet their needs and practice styles. In 2019, more than 1,500 victim advocates and CAC directors shared detailed feedback about current practices and remaining needs around family engagement in surveys. Victim advocates indicated the need for structured training in best practices for mental health screening, evidence-based practice identification and referral, and evidence-based engagement strategies. Through E3, CACs can put that knowledge into action and train victim advocates on practices that are most effective at getting children and families the mental health services needed.

CACs trained through E3 will work toward common goals that all children and families served by CACs will be:

1. Screened and assessed for treatment needs.
2. Referred for treatment based on the needs identified through the screening and assessment.
3. Engaged in that treatment through attendance and participation toward successful completion.
4. Partnered with the CAC to assess progress and celebrate success.

To bolster the important work victim advocates already do with families, the focus of the current project is to provide training to victim advocates in brief mental health screening, evidence-based practice, identification and referrals, trauma responses, and evidence-based engagement skills. E3 training will be conducted in conjunction with a research project supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH;R34MH118486) that will examine the best methods of training and determine if the training provided translates into improved family engagement in mental health services. As in all CAC-based projects, active participation by CAC directors is critical to the success of the training.

What You’ll Learn

Victim Advocates will view 5 pre-recorded webinars (one every other week) and participate in 5 – 1 hour consultation calls which will be scheduled every other week.  All training is delivered over a 10 week period beginning on January 25, 2021.   There are pre-work requirements for Victim Advocates and their Senior Leaders – refer to list below

Through the training, victim advocates will learn:

• How research has informed CAC services.
• The expanded NCA mission to include healing, barriers to this mission, and NCA’s response
• What family engagement is and why it’s important.
• How NCA’s 2017 Standard for Accredited Members on Victim Advocacy and Mental Health supports the NCA mission of healing and child well-being.
• How to use the Mental Health Treatment Roadmap to increase family engagement with mental health treatment participation and completion.
• The expanded role of the victim advocate to include family engagement in mental health treatment.
• Strategies from the family engagement research designed to increase family engagement in mental health treatment.
• The importance of building collaborative relationships with mental health providers.
• How to administer and utilize the screening instrument to identify treatment needs.
• The difference between screening and assessment, and how to introduce, administer and discuss results of screening with caregivers to facilitate referral for mental health services.
• Information on evidence-based treatments so advocates can explain the services to caregivers.
• Involving multidisciplinary team (MDT) members in the family engagement process.
• How to identify and refer to a qualified mental health provider for a trauma assessment and for mental health treatment if indicated.
• Understand the purpose of and how to use desk cards to support family engagement interventions and mental health treatment to completion.
• How to collaborate with a mental health provider to monitor and track services and gather metrics to inform treatment progress.
• How to gather and report metrics to inform service outcomes and to support the evaluation of this training.

Trainees and Their Project Requirements

Victim advocates are the core of the family engagement response, but they can’t go it alone in E3. They’ll also need senior leadership participation both to be trained throughout E3 and, more broadly, to succeed at the project’s real-world goals.

Victim Advocate Project Requirements

Here are the activities that will encompass the project requirements for victim advocates:

• Complete Child Victim Web as pre-work. (Includes CEUs that support training requirements of NCA’s Standards for Accredited Members.) http://cv.musc.edu/
• Engage in the initial welcome/orientation call.
• View five pre-recorded webinars -one every other week.
• Complete assigned homework designed to offer implementation between webinars.
• Complete pre-training measures.
• Ongoing completion of OMS Initial Visit Caregiver Surveys and Caregiver Follow-Up Surveys with custom additions for project.
• Victim Advocates will engage in 5 one-hour consultation calls between the webinars to support the implementation of their learning.
• Complete post-training assessment measures.

Senior Leader Project Requirements

A senior leader is a CAC staff member in a leadership role including responsibility for the outcome of services to children and families served by the CAC. This person should have administrative responsibility within the organization with authority to make systematic changes (policies, procedures, budgeting) to support the implementation of the E3 training in their organization and/or across the community. Because operational and systems support for changes to victim advocacy is critical to the success of this training, senior leader participation is required. For the purpose of this project, the CAC director and/or clinical director should be designated as the senior leader. Here are the activities that will encompass the project requirements for senior leaders:

Complete:

The CAC Directors Mental Health Guide as pre-work https://www.nctsn.org/resources/child-advocacy-center-cac-directors-guide-quality-mental-healthcare

Child Victim Web if not already completed. http://cv.musc.edu/

• Engage in the initial welcome/orientation call.
• Hold weekly meetings with the victim advocate(s) to gather metrics regarding E3 activities (i.e., homework, number of screening completed, results of screenings, collaboration with mental health providers, referrals made and sessions attended by child and caregiver and outcome of treatment services).
• Engage in a second senior leader call as scheduled.
• Collection of OMS Multidisciplinary Team Surveys with custom additions for this project.
• Completion of the post-training feasibility assessment.

SCHEDULE FOR CONSULTATION CALLS

Group 1: Tuesdays from 10-11EST 

CLICK HERE for Zoom Link - Meeting ID: 957 2901 4820 - Passcode: 392707

• February 2^nd 
• February 16^th
• March 2^nd
• March 16^th
• March 30^th

Group 2: Tuesdays from 1:00-2:00EST 

CLICK HERE for Zoom Link - Meeting ID: 919 0670 6417 - Passcode: 148001

• February 2^nd
• February 16^th
• March 2^nd
• March 16^th 
• March 30^th

Group 3: Wednesdays from 12:00-1:00EST 

CLICK HERE for Zoom Link - Meeting ID: 978 2065 8357 - Passcode: 559549

• February 3^rd 
• February 17^th
• March 3^rd 
• March 17^th
• March 31^st  

Homework to be completed after Web 1:

• Review Desk Cards related to the learning objectives of this Webinar Session (Virtual Notebook)

• Review Victim Advocacy and Support NCA Accreditation Standard (Virtual Notebook)

• Consult with your Senior Leader to determine if you CAC has a Safety Plan policy and procedures.  Sample in Virtual Notebook

• If your CAC does not have a Safety Plan, discuss an action plan with Senior Leader to develop one

Homework to be completed after Web 2:

Watch MI videos:

• How to do MI: 

• Demonstration of OARS:  

• What not to do MI:  

• Review the video on Reflective Listening  

Watch TIES videos:

 TIES Introduction Video 

TIES Demonstration Video

1. Referral to Mental Health for assessment and or treatment
2. Attendance at the 1st appointment  
3. Completed Treatment  
4. Did the child get better

• Sustaining Changes
• Increasing access to MH services for children and families
• Addressing other gaps identified on your map
• Tracking mental health outcomes

1. Did the child receive a MH assessment
2. Did the child attend the 1st session
3. Did the child complete treatment
4. Did the child get better
5. Did the caregiver attend their own counselling