FDC Research: The perceived impact of strengths-based family worker training: Workers' learning that helped empower families"
Kathryn Palmer-House, Ed.D., FDC Senior Instructor
Dissertation Research: Teachers College, Columbia University, 2006.
This qualitative case study explored perceptions of family workers trained in strengths-based family support to better understand what and how they learned that helped empower families. Fifteen workers participated from agencies with Head Start and Family Development Credential Programs. Agency supervisors referred workers who were considered effective at helping families reach goals of self-reliance. Workers completed a Definitions of Empowerment survey and participated in semi-structured interviews. Twenty-five family members who worked with workers also participated in brief interviews. The central research question of this study was, “What and how do family workers learn that helps empower families?”
Data analysis uncovered workers’ perceptions of knowledge, skills, learning strategies, and factors that affected their abilities to help empower families. Workers reported they learned knowledge and skills in three areas: attending (listening, empathy and mutually respectful relationships), processing (goal-setting, advocating, and recognizing strengths), and meaning-making (understanding diversity and the roles of the family and worker in family support). Differences in workers’ processing and meaning-making skills appeared to be associated with their length of experience. Workers perceived they learned through life experiences, professional practice, strengths-based training, and workplace support networks. Differences in their perceptions suggested increased abilities developed through experience.
Workers perceived legislative reforms, outcomes measures, and performance-based funding hindered their abilities in three ways: 1) created a “disconnect between approach and practice; 2) increased demand for workers’ services with fewer resources, and 3) undermined the effectiveness of family support work. They perceived supervisors, co-workers, mentors, and professional groups contributed to their occupational efficacy. However, the types and roles of workers’ support networks varied over the duration of employment.
Findings suggested workers perceived paradigm shifts in learning over the duration of employment that were associated with three stages of learning:
1) Socialization (learning to implement strengths-based practice; 2) Internalization (resolving dissonance about limitations in their abilities to mediate barriers to family empowerment) and 3) Identification (recognizing tacit assumptions and viewing empowerment as a contextual experience shaped by culture, experience, and outside influences). Recommendations were developed for family workers, agency leaders, educators of family workers, and curriculum developers to enhance workers’ learning opportunities.
A copy of this dissertation is available through UMI Proquest/Digital Dissertations at wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations (Publication No 3225185)
at 1-800-521-0600 Ext.7704. For more information, please contact Katie at kep26@cornell.edu.
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Thomasine Watson Smith, Ed.D., Head Start Director, Builder for Families and Youth, Diocese of Brooklyn, Inc., Brooklyn, NY
Dissertation Research: Teachers College, Columbia University, 2003
Research has neglected to document the link between training of social services workers who are Head Start’s primary front-line staff and quality outcomes for themselves and the families who utilized this federally-funded program that was established to provide comprehensive services for society’s most impoverished.
The purpose of this study is to show that the social services staff, with appropriate training, can demonstrate the types of skills, knowledge and attitudes necessary to support families in their efforts to become less dependent on society or dependency-inducing programs. This means that social services staff, after undergoing training, will treat the families as partners, encouraging them to accept themselves and make their own decisions based on their strengths instead of what workers want for them.
A quasi-experimental design was utilized in this study. Two groups, an experimental and control group participated in the study. Each group consisted of seven social services workers who were more alike than dissimilar representing seven Head Start centers in impoverished communities located in New York City. Data were collected from a variety of sources that included pre and post-questionnaires, surveys, observations and program documents. Analysis focused on comparing the two groups on specific dimensions by using a model of program evaluation that measured communication skills, job-related knowledge, and attitudes toward the families that utilized Head Start services.
Findings revealed that the workers who participated in the training intervention had benefited. Their communication skills, attitudes toward families, and knowledge of resources in the respective communities were enhanced. However, the success of the training could be attributed to a number of variables that included organizational support, the trainees, trainers, training program selected and the training methodology that incorporated adult learning theories. Hence, the study is significant to the field of adult learning and human development because of its emphasis on staff development and potential outcomes for staff, families and possibly communities.
A copy of this dissertation is available through UMI Proquest/Digital Dissertations at wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations (Publication No. AAT 30911305). For more information, please contact Dr. WatsonSmith at TWSMITH@ccbq.org.
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Betsy Crane, Ph.D., Professor, Center for Education
Widener University, Chester, PA 19081
Dissertation Research: Cornell University, 2000
Elucidation of a program's theory of change is an important first step in theory-based evaluation of multi-level effects in comprehensive, interagency programs. An interpretivist, participatory research design was used to illuminate the program theory of the New York State Family Development Training and Credentialing (FDC) Program, a community-based, family support training and credentialing program for frontline workers. The FDC program, which teaches a strengths-based, empowerment model of practice, has the capacity to produce effects at many levels¾ for workers/trainees themselves, the people they work with, their agencies, and their communities.
Qualitative data gathered from a purposive sample of program participants and other stakeholders were used to construct a logic model to present and discuss key components of the FDC with an emphasis on outcomes, including examples of how they were experienced by program stakeholders. Also presented are key elements of the change process, the connections between program activities and outcomes. Factors such as mutual respect, critical reflection, caring, and group participation stand out as important mediators of change.
This study is an example of how practitioner research can play an important role in theory-based evaluation as a method for construct development. The constructs identified as steps in the change process can be used to develop measurable indicators to assess the degree to which these changes are occurring in a more representative sample. The findings may also contribute to improved implementation of the program at the local and statewide level, as well as in other states where the program is being replicated. For more information, please contact Dr. Crane at bcrane@widener.edu.
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