Happy 2012!  As you may know December 21, 2012 marks the end of the Mayan calendar and some people say these means the end of the world.  But here at the Child Welfare Academy we refuse to even consider the possibility.  This is no time to sit around and worry, it’s time to get busy and carry on the work of child protection and helping OCS staff continue the delivery excellent services to Alaska’s children and families!  This year also marks the 100^th Celebratory Year of the Children’s Bureau, which is the oldest Federal agency with the sole responsibility for the safety and well-being of children.

It’s the end of January and it’s tempting to say that we have passed the mid-winter mark weatherwise, but, as this January is likely to be the coldest one on record for Anchorage, right now it’s hard to look outside and be very hopeful about warmer weather any time soon.  Inside the Academy we are staying warm, providing ongoing training and developing new training to meet the needs of the Office of Children’s Services.

The Motivational Interviewing class has been very well received and is going to be on the CWA calendar for the coming fiscal year (July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2013).  We are also delivering the Strengthening Families training for the next 5 months statewide along with SKILS and Child Forensic Interviewing.  Delivering training is our primary focus, but we have other items to attend to as well.  Between January and July Academy staff will be attending a series of trainings delivered by Action for Child Protection on Resource Family Assessment and Critical Thinking.  In April we will be attending the 18^th National Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect in Washington, D. C.  The theme of this year’s conference is Celebrating the Past – Imagining the Future and highlights the past successes of child protection, learning from our challenges and to continue our movement toward the dream of eliminating child abuse and neglect. 

A new offering from the Academy this year is monthly Learning Collaboration Teleconferences.  Starting in February, Academy trainers will host a one hour teleconference once a month to discuss specific issues pertaining to child protection in Alaska.  Dates and topics will be posted here on the webpage, so visit us often.

As the Academy strives to improve training we are revising SKILS to make the training more accessible to new staff.  Please stay tuned for further news on the new and innovative ways that SKILS will change to better meet the needs of our Number 1 customer, the Office of Children’s Services.

In closing we encourage you to join with us and improve communication through social marketing. Look right and you will see a QR code and a link to Facebook. Please call, email, visit our website or “like” us on Facebook. We would love to hear from you!