Using Protective Factors to Inform Work with Child Maltreatment

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This 2 hour webinar will focus on best practices for clinicians and other service providers working in the child abuse prevention community. The presenter will highlight not only risk factors associated with child maltreatment but also the 6 protective factors and describe how they can reduce likelihood of abuse or neglect. This webinar will assist clinicians and advocates in identifying activities/services they currently or could begin to offer families that build protective factors.

Representatives from FRIENDS National Center for Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention

Casandra Firman, M.S. is a training and technical assistance coordinator for the FRIENDS National Center for Community Based Child Abuse Prevention. In this capacity, she assists State lead agencies that receive Federal Community Based Child Abuse Prevention funds as they plan, implement and evaluate services for the prevention of child abuse.  Over the past fifteen years, Casandra has taken the lead on many projects related to outcome accountability in child abuse prevention. She was the lead staff on the development of the FRIENDS evaluation toolkit and worked in partnership with the Child Welfare Information Gateway to develop the Logic Model Builder, a web-based interactive program to assist programs to develop logic models. Since 2004, Casandra has been FRIENDS’ lead staff in a national effort to develop and test the Protective Factors Survey (PFS), a survey that helps programs evaluate their effectiveness in increasing protective factors in families. The PFS was released in 2008 and is now widely used across the country in prevention and family strengthening programs. The Center for the Study of Social Policy uses the PFS as an evaluation measure for its Strengthening Families initiative and has developed a web-enabled database for collecting national data on protective factors. Casandra acted as FRIENDS lead staff to coordinate efforts with the University of Kansas to develop and test a Spanish language adaptation of the Protective Factors Survey (S-PFS). The survey was released in 2014.

Prior to joining FRIENDS, Casandra worked in many capacities to strengthen families and increase safety for children. She taught early childhood education in colleges in both the United States and Australia and taught adult basic education and parenting at a women’s prison. She was a parent educator for Oregon Children’s Services Division (Oregon’s Child Protective Services Agency). Casandra served as the Executive Director of Family Building Blocks in Salem, Oregon, a comprehensive family support center that provided crisis and planned respite, parent education classes, opportunities to develop positive social connections, and access to concrete supports. She managed a Family Day Care network in Queensland, Australia. Casandra graduated from Central Washington University in 1972 with a degree in Education. In 1990, she earned a Master’s Degree in Special Education from the University of Oregon. Casandra lives in Washington State.

Alicia Luckie. M.S. is a Training and Technical Assistance Coordinator for the FRIENDS National Center for CBCAP. Alicia has worked in the child abuse and neglect prevention field for 18 years. Alicia has a Master’s Degree in Counseling and Human Development with an emphasis in Early Childhood and Adolescents. She has extensive knowledge in local and statewide network development, evidence-based practice in prevention, and program development and implementation. Alicia has experience in working with local, state, and federal governments, public-private partnerships, and evaluation. She has provided workshops and trainings in prevention at the state and national level.

Cover photo image: Creative Commons Licensing [Flickr, CT Senate Democrat, May 2nd 2012]

This presentation is not endorsed by the Department of Defense and the information, as well as any opinions or views, contained herein are solely that of the presenter.