Re: Child Protection Training

["Ray Carlson" <Ray.Carlson@xxxxxx>]

I have been slow to respond to this comment due to other immediate
pressures, but I think several important points are raised.

Over the past few years, we have been developing a child welfare training
program that is based on capturing the responses of highly experienced staff
to case situations.  Trainees are asked to respond to the same case
situations and are given feedback as to how their responses compare to that
of the experienced staff.

The responses of the experienced staff are validated by looking for certain
features that suggest higher levels of experience and by finding agreement
among staff.  The training takes place via computer and, in the near future,
via the Internet.

The project is based on research that suggests that suggests that
development of the ability to formulate complex assessments and decision
making tends to be experiential.  Expert responses require extensive
experience with good feedback to move beyond simplistic reactions.   In
other words, we should not expect significant transfer of learning from a
limited, non-practice situation to interaction with cases.   Therefore one
key is to present the cases in as realistic a manner as possible.  Another
key is to present a large number of cases with modest differences between
cases so that the trainee learns to recognize which differences are
important.  The development of compatible ways to store and quickly access
large computerized data bases of case situations made this project feasible.

In one sense, the program offers its own validation since the trainees
continue to work on the simulations until their responses improve [using the
responses of the experienced workers as benchmarks].   In the long run, we
hope to set up a full trial and see if case outcomes show improvement [the
interviews with the experienced workers also captures their assumptions
about appropriate outcomes per case], but development work is progressing
slowly.  Full implementation of the training is still six to eight months
away.  Current plans suggest that we would proceed to a formal evaluation in
about two years.

Intensive supervision is an alternate way to facilitate experiential
learning.  Therefore, we hope to compare the effects of this simulation
training to that of intensive supervision, but we have to build on other
projects like the one mentioned in the prior message.

It is difficult to summarize this work in a few paragraphs, but I think it
is worthwhile to have more discussion about the challenges inherent in
transfer of learning and particularly learning that might lead to effective
practice.

Ray Carlson, Ph.D.
Maritime School of Social Work
Dalhousie University
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Canada
Ray.Carlson@Dal.Ca


----- Original Message -----
From: Robin Leake <Robin@americanhumane.org>
To: Child Maltreatment Researchers
<CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu>
Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 11:54 AM
Subject: Re: Child Protection Training


> The American Humane Association evaluates child welfare training  for the
state of Colorado as well as nationally.  While "transfer of learning" is a
hot topic in the field right now, there is little being done to promote
transfer of knowledge and skills learned in training to the job, let alone
evaluate it.  Efforts to evaluate transfer of learning have pimarily focused
on self-reports of workers asking them questions about how they have used
their core training on the job.   I know of no studies that actually measure
the extent to which training impacts skill and knowledge level of workers.
You mentioned using technological tools for training and evaluation.  I
believe that comuter simulations could effectively be utilized to test skill
acquisition in a standardized way, but as far as I know, nobody is doing
this yet.
>
> Anecdotal evidence suggests that workers do have difficulty transfering
learning for a variety of reasons, including climate of their agency,
motivation, basic knowledge,skill level, and experience at the time of core
training, and most importantly, supervisor support.  Supervisors report
having little time to mentor their workers, and they often are unaware of
what new workers are learning in training.
>
> We are currently conducting a randomized intervention study to increase
transfer of learning for for caseworkers in core training.  Supervisors are
given on-the-job training about how to mentor new workers in the context of
their very demanding jobs and on-going support for 6 months as they mentor
new workers using specific activities and skill assessments.   We are
conducting self-report evaluations of both supervisors and workers at three
different time points and doing a skill assessment of workers at the end of
the study.  The purpose of the study is to find out whether learning is
being transferred, how to best promote transfer, and finally, how transfer
of learning impacts job perfomance.
>
> Robin Leake, Ph.D
> Research Associate
> American Humane Association
> Children's Services
> 63 Inverness Drive East
> Englewood, CO 80112-5117
> (303) 792-9900
> (800) 227-4645
> (303) 792-5333 (fax)
> robin@americanhumane.org
> http://www.americanhumane.org
>