Webinar held on March 21, 2012

Improving Supervision by Collaboration, Transparency and Accountability: The Impact of Missouri’s Supervision Advisory Committee (SAC), was the third session in What Works for the Workforce: Leadership Competencies in Action – A National Webinar Series on Leading Change to Strengthen the Child Welfare Workforce.

This webinar showcases the activities of the Missouri Department of Social Services’ Children’s Division in enhancing and supporting effective supervision of frontline child welfare staff. Participants hear about the action steps and strategies taken to organize, develop and sustain the Supervision Advisory Committee (SAC), which uses a participatory design process to address supervisor recruitment, training and professional development; supervisor support; casework/clinical supervision; administrative/management supervision; and the supervisory role in the agency and community. Presenters will provide information about the committee’s charter, strategic plan, and improvement efforts, as well as the group’s major outcomes and accomplishments over the last five years. Presenters offer lessons learned and tips to help other agencies operationalize similar supervisory improvement efforts, as well as highlight the leadership skills and competencies necessary to sustain this multi-faceted initiative over time.

Presenters for this session include:

• Susan Savage, MSW, Deputy Director for the Missouri Department of Social Services’ Children’s Division, has been with the Division for more than 16 years. Susan has served in a variety of frontline and managerial child welfare positions over the years. While pursuing her Masters Degree in Social Work at the University of Missouri, Susan’s primary focus was on staff recruitment and retention issues in child welfare. The program areas she currently oversees include Quality Assurance/Quality Improvement, SACWIS Development, Residential Licensing and other Interdepartmental Initiatives.
• Rebecca Porter, MSW, Management Analysis Specialist II, has 17 years of public child welfare experience. She was a child welfare worker and supervisor before being promoted to Central Office 12 years ago, where she is currently positioned within the Quality Assurance Unit and leads Missouri’s efforts in the CFSR process. She has considerable experience collaborating with both internal staff and external partners to create and implement a shared vision for effective child welfare practice.
• Nancy McDaniel, MPA, Director of Consultation & Capacity Building at the Butler Institute for Families, University of Denver, leads NCWWI’s Knowledge Assessment & Management (KAM) team. She has worked in the field of human services for more than 25 years, and has extensive experience in technical assistance, consultation, training, program evaluation and policy analysis in child welfare. Ms. McDaniel also works with the Mountains and Plains Child Welfare Implementation Center team, a federally-funded Regional Center providing long-term support for state and tribal agencies to implement and sustain systemic changes.

1-page Summary

• Improving Supervision 1-pager

Recordings

• Webinar Recording (video)
• Learning Lab Recording (audio only)
• Webinar MP3 (audio only)

  Handouts