As a meeting facilitator you have an important role in achieving safety, permanency and well-being for children in out of home care. Permanency planning meetings can be emotionally charged. This eLearning series will help you (a) learn a range of prevention behaviors that can keep tense situations from turning into crises and (b) help you learn how more effectively manage a situation that has become a crisis and may involve threats to someone’s safety. You'll learn about understanding where anger comes from and what it looks like, tools to help others stay calm and communicate what they need, helpful communication strategies for tense situations, acknowledging individual and cultural differences and how they affect communication, and understanding how to manage your own emotional responses to hard situations. In the second module, the key insights are identifying a crisis, verbal strategies to help de-escalate situations and managing your own reaction, as well as specific stay-safe strategies and considerations during and after a crisis.
There are many opportunities within the course to examine real-life situations and practice applying the information. Upon completing the course, you will be better prepared to respond in a crisis and prevent safety issues from occurring. You will have a better understanding of what to do when staff safety threats do occur, and what to do after such incidents.
