The State of Michigan requires that any child welfare workers complete nine weeks of training through the Child Welfare Training Institute (CWTI) before they can begin managing cases on their own. I was enrolled in the CWTI on May 16 to begin this process. The first week was completing homework while working at my home office. I did online assignments and shadowed different workers. It allowed me to learn quite a bit more about the ins and outs of foster care.
The next two weeks consisted of classroom training with about 300 new hires. This included people with the state who were in CPS, foster care, and adoption. Also, there were private agencies there that were going to be doing foster care and adoption. There were some things that were helpful to learn, but some other stuff was just review to me. If you’re interested, you can check out our swearing-in ceremony here.
This past week was back in the office to do more homework. What was really nice about it was that I found out about a few cases I’ll be getting when I’m done in mid-July. This meant that I got to meet at least one of the families and talk to them. I also read up on some case files. It was very informative and it’s good to know about what I’ll be doing specifically.
The next three weeks I’ll be in Lansing for classroom learning on the specifics of doing foster care (namely the paperwork). Then another week in the office, and my final week will be a mock trial and a big test. As you can tell, my updates have been sparse, and probably will continue to be. Hopefully it’ll be a bit more regularly in July once training and class and interning are wrapping up.
A Taste of My Life 