QPI-MN will be presenting a panel as part of this year’s virtual CASCW conference featuring speakers and panelists as they explore how child welfare workers can best facilitate and support birth and foster parent relationships to improve outcomes for children and families. The audience will learn current strategies and best practices from those with professional and personal experience.

2022 CASCW Annual Spring Conference – Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare (umn.edu)

Join us for a practice exchange designed to examine the journey to youth partnerships. During this time, we will draw on a collection of expertise from a combination of youth with lived experience in foster care and QPI site staff working directly with youth. We will discuss the successes and challenges to building and maintaining youth partnerships and the environments in which they need to thrive. Sites will share how youth partnerships have helped change policies and operational practices. We will also examine the youth partnership journey of QPI-MN and how that model can be replicated. 

 Practice exchanges are interactive meetings, so come prepared to engage with your QPI colleagues and turn your camera on (if possible)! By participating, you're consenting to being recorded.

Learn more and register at qpi4kids.org

Role of Steering Committee

▪ Supports all branches of statewide network through strategic thinking and idea generating

▪ Offers high-level review and feedback to the Action Work Groups prior to finalized recommendations

▪ Works towards implementation of QPI philosophy and practices within their area of child welfare

▪ Increase awareness of QPI within member’s collaborative networks

Member Attributes

▪ Share common goal for long-term viability of QPI-MN

▪ Represent the various stakeholder groups within the child welfare system and those who support it

▪ Realize opinions and strategies may not always align with one another and respect the diverse perspectives everyone brings to the process of oversight

Interested in learning more? Contact kate@qpimn.org

QPI-MN’s Youth Voice Action Work Group is presenting at the MSSA Conference!

Description: Youth are foster care experts through their lived experience. QPI-MN Youth developed this presentation to help caregivers and child welfare staff create a safer, healthier, and more loving environment for them to thrive. Youth will discuss fostering adolescents, the importance of sibling and family connections, and understanding their needs prior, during, and after placement.

"The Center” - a common response given when asked where youth are in the foster care or child welfare system. Yet, good intentions and assumptions made by adults don’t always keep them there.

 Youth leaders will present their insights into the development of the QPI-MN Youth Voices action workgroup, their personal engagement story, working together on projects, their accomplishments, and future goals. Staff from QPI-MN will share their journey of how to support and nurture youth leadership. You will walk away inspired and with strategies that keep youth engaged and their momentum moving forward!

Learn more and register at qpi4kids.org

A new year is an ideal time to step back and take stock of where we are and where we're going. We’ve come a long way, but we're staying true to where we started.

Join us for QPI 101: Fundamentals and Core Principles of the Quality Parenting Initiative where we will review our history, dive deep into our principles, and explore strategies that support excellent parenting for every child every day. Participants will hear from a diverse panel of QPI practitioners, QPI National team members, and network members with lived experience.

 This 90-minute webinar is scheduled for Thursday, February 17th 1:00pm Central

https://YLCQPI.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_LRPKiCYjR8OtR5psSh4HZg

The UMD Center for Regional and Tribal Child Welfare Studies is pleased to announce the 2020 Annual ICWA Conference featuring keynote speaker Dr. Jerry Milner. Dr. Milner currently serves as the Acting Commissioner of the Administration for Children and Families and oversees the Family and Youth Services Bureau in addition to the Children's Bureau. Conference presentations will offer examples of ICWA collaboration and how collaboration strengthens American Indian children and families, and the agencies that serve them.

Registration begins at 7:30 a.m. Lunch will be provided and a vegetarian and gluten free option will be served. If you need an accommodation for this conference, please contact Karen Nichols at knichols@d.umn.edu or 218-726-8023.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2020-annual-icwa-conference-icwa-collaborations-registration-96778554261

FREE | Caregiver registration will be prioritized Training participants will gain understanding of the following:

• Normative social media use

• Benefits of social media use for teens

• How to be safe on social media sites and some of the dangers to look out for

• Social media site demonstrations: how they work and how to set privacy controls

To register, go to AspireMN.org and click “Register HERE” Social work CEUs and completion certificates will be provided for this training.

About the trainer: Professor Jodi Dworkin’s research and discovery focuses on risk-taking among adolescents and college students, promoting positive family development, and parenting adolescents and college students. Her work attempts a paradigm shift away from the historically negative model of youth risk-taking behaviors to a normative model of youth exploration, one that sees this behavior as functional, intentional and part of an active process of identity formation. A critical piece of her work is developing research-based outreach services to promote positive family development. She is the winner of the 2013 Council of Graduate Students Outstanding Faculty Award.

This training is being offered in partnership between the Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare, U of MN Family Social Science Department, the AspireMN Foster Care Committee, Quality Parenting Initiative-MN, and the Mitchell Hamline School of Law’s Institute to Transform Child Protection.

Parents and caregivers (i.e. foster parents, relatives) have been critical to the roots of Quality Parenting Initiative-Minnesota through their expertise and willingness to work together with other key stakeholders. This session’s panel is comprised of those individuals with lived experience and the workers who are supporting change to “business as usual” mentality in foster care. Research upholds that reunification efforts are improved and lower return to foster care occurs by the lasting connections developed with the child and families. This presentation will identify how strengthened communication and relationships between parent and caregivers is key to the child/youth’s time in out of home placement. Participants will learn how intentional shared leadership in identifying best practices has led to relevant and needed change in areas of the child welfare community.

3rd Annual Foster Child and Youth Day on the Hill

March 9, 2020

9:00 AM – Youth Summit at Capitol Ridge Hotel

1:30 PM – Rally in the Capitol Building Rotunda

Afternoon – Advocacy Visits with Representatives

• To register a young person click à https://www.fosterchildandyouthday.com/events/youth-summit-registration-1

• To register yourself à https://www.fosterchildandyouthday.com/events/supportive-adult-registration-1

• To register a meeting with your/youth’s lawmaker click à https://forms.gle/JnGiCv3FZX7CQ4r8A

To learn more, contact Kate Rickord @ krickord@stdavidscenter.org

Kinship Caregiver Conference and Resource Fair

Saturday, November 16, 2019
10:30-3:00pm

Center for Changing Lives
2400 Park Avenue
Minneapolis, MN

Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota is hosting its free annual caregiver conference and resource fair. Learn about local resources and supports when you are parenting a child who is not your own. Registration required: www.lssmn.org/kinshipregistration

Anoka County Government Center

2100 3rd Avenue

Anoka, MN 55303

Description: Learn basic first aid skills needed to help youth or a young adult who is experiencing a mental health problem or crisis including suicide. Focus is given to recognizing the early warning signs of a mental health problem to full-blown suicidal ideation.

To sign up go to: https://ymhfa-anoka11-16.eventbrite.com

To learn more, contact Kate Rickord @ krickord@stdavidscenter.org.

https://campaignforchildren.org/resources/fact-sheet/fact-sheet-family-first-prevention-services-act/

https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.aspiremn.org/resource/resmgr/family_first_prevention_serv.pdf

Available to join via Zoom: contact krickord@stdavidscenter.org for more information for video or phone-in.

Cost: Free

As more children receive community-based services, everyone agrees that the typical client in child welfare agencies has grown exponentially more acute and complex. Old models are not working and provider agencies are scrambling to manage and treat the extreme behaviors of youth in their care.

Recognizing this fact, more and more states are mandating that child welfare agencies become trauma-informed. The state of California, for example, passed statewide legislation requiring that state-funded residential and foster care agencies implement trauma-informed care (TIC).

Participants will leave this webinar understanding:

·       What it REALLY means to be a trauma-informed organization

·       The benefits of a whole-system change process rather than a piecemeal approach to change

·       The stages of implementation and how to sustain hard-won progress over time

·       The importance of concrete implementation tools and measures to evaluate progress

·       The features and benefits of the Traumatic Stress Institute's Whole System Change Model 

Register today, for this FREE webinar, offered by the Traumatic Stress Institute of Klingberg Family Centers

Join us to create change in the experience of foster youth, foster parents and birth and relative families.

11:00 - 12:00 Registration and Lunch

12:00 - 4:00 Stakeholder Information and Work Session

Contact sarntson@co.scott.mn.us for more info.