4.1 Providing Services
Throughout the provision of treatment services, the Children’s Service Worker should maintain a focused casework perspective. Contacts with the family are to be purposeful and goal-oriented.
Provide treatment services to the family by any of the following methods:
- Direct Services by the Children’s Service Worker;
- Teaching the family behavioral techniques for changing undesirable behaviors. An example of this would be introducing the parents to behavior modification methods such as positive reinforcement and "time-out," rather than physical punishment;
- Teaching the family appropriate methods to channel frustrations and manage anger;
- Modeling effective family communication and structuring family activities to enhance communication and family functioning;
- Engaging the family in the treatment process;
- Providing individual counseling and/or family therapy;
- Teaching life skills, such as how to improve self-esteem and how to look for employment;
- Teaching and role modeling household management skills, such as house cleaning, budgeting, and cooking;
- Providing "hard services" to meet basic needs of the family, such as securing food, shelter, and transportation; and
- Developing resources and making these resources available to the family for their ongoing support.
- Referring the family to any available community resource or any support system identified by the family;
- Authorizing and managing the use of Children's Treatment Services (CTS);
The Children’s Service Worker should actively ensure that all purchased services are efficiently utilized. The individuals providing these services are considered additional members of the treatment team, which is under the overall direction of the worker.
- Accessing Crisis Intervention Funds;
The Children’s Service Worker should consider requesting crisis intervention funds for a family who is faced with a short-term crisis that, without intervention, may result in child maltreatment.
- Re-assessing a family on an on-going basis, for strengths, needs, progress and risk;
The Children’s Service Worker should continue to assess the strengths, needs, and progress of the family, and the safety of the child(ren) throughout the Family Assessment process and while the case is opened for Family Centered Services (FCS) or Family-Centered Out-Of-Home Care (FCOOHC). The worker should use the CD-14Aand the CS-16E Risk Re-assessment to document re-assessment of the family and anytime the situation warrants.
- Any combination of the above.
NOTE: Discuss with all clients the importance of primary and preventive health care, including the impact of planning the spacing of children on the health of the mother and the family, prenatal care, well-baby and postnatal care, and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Timely referrals shall be made and assistance provided in accessing care. Barriers to accessing the services may include lack of transportation, lack of knowledge, inadequate or no insurance, lack of service providers, access to clinical services (i.e., inconvenient clinic hours), etc. If barriers to these primary health care services persist, they shall be discussed in supervisory conference, in order to identify ways to overcome the barriers.
If no medical plan/provider has been chosen by the family, the county health department may be a resource for them. Assistance may be provided in creating a linkage between the family and the health department or medical plan/provider, i.e., accompanying them on the first visit. Transportation services are available through some county health departments to assist in accessing needed health services.
These include face-to-face contacts or telephone calls with family members, collateral, references, and community resources.
The Children’s Service Worker, depending on his/her abilities, can provide whatever services a family needs. Examples of direct services that the worker may need to provide are:
The Children’s Service Worker should utilize all available community resources to help the family. This may require the use of purchased services. The worker will use community providers when he/she assesses that some, or all, of the services cannot be delivered directly.