Foster Care Training

Meeting ethical and legal standards is foundational for the provision of competent services and support for system involved youth. Many dimensions of these standards are clear and have remained constant over the years. Yet others continue to evolve, and mental health and social services professionals routinely confront complex and ambiguous ethical and legal situations. The purpose of this course is to give those who serve and support system involved youth an opportunity to renew and sharpen their ability to engage in knowledgeable and effective ethical decision-making, and understand and apply ethical and legal standards to challenges inherent within efforts to serve and support children, adolescents and families. The course also has the goal of assisting participants in better managing the risks inherent in providing services and support to system involved youth and families. The workshop will begin with a discussion of challenges to and methods of addressing the quality of ethical decision making, with an emphasis on common biases and judgement errors, and steps to reduce judgements in decisions, generally. The course then will turn its focus to a particular kind of bias, racism and barriers to equity for traditionally marginalized communities in mental healthcare and social services and will present models to help increase access and equity. Confidentiality, it’s limits [e.g. case law and statutory developments in the California duty to protect (e.g., Turner v. Rivera, 2021), child abuse reporting law, and elder/depending adult abuse reporting developments] will be discussed, as will the implications of the Information Blocking rule and the No Surprises Act. Issues regarding the remote and hybrid services and support will also be explored. This workshop will conclude by assisting professionals in navigating efforts to serve and support high conflict, system-involved families. If time permits, we will discuss preventing and managing licensing board complaints. This course meets and exceeds the Board of Psychology’s mandated ethics and law update requirement, and the Board of Behavioral Sciences 6 hour update requirement.