Tagged With "Family"

The 2019 Voices for Children Breakfast was hosted by NC Child earlier this month. Members of the child advocacy community came together to celebrate achievements in their work with families and children and recognize leaders who have made a difference. SaySo (Strong Able Youth Speaking Out) was awarded the first-ever Community Voices Award. SaySo is a statewide association of youth aged 14 to 24 who are, or have been, in the North Carolina foster care system. As youth who have first-hand...

Health can be significantly inconsistent between individuals and populations. Variables called the Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) assist in understanding the range of factors that affect a person’s overall well-being. SDoH are defined by the World Health Organization as “the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age.” These environments are mostly shaped by the distribution of money, power and resources and have substantial impact on education, occupation, policies,...

The month of March brings an abundance of things to celebrate, including National Social Work Month! The National Association of Social Workers dedicates March as a time to celebrate the incredible social work profession and to educate others on the many contributions made by social workers in our communities. This year’s theme “Social Workers are Essential” calls our attention to the indelible role of the social worker in responding to the COVID-19 public health emergency. Indeed, for...

Nazareth Child and Family Connection has been a vital member to Benchmarks’ Partnering for Excellence (PFE) partnership since 2012. While they offer amazing services to the children and family involved in the project, Nazareth is also a huge contributor to innovative and best practice in and around their community. Nazareth was founded in 1906 and has since continued to provide an array of services to meet the needs of children and families located in Rowan and Davidson Counties. Their...

The holiday season portrays itself as a holly jolly good time starting in November with Thanksgiving and continuing through New Year’s Day. During this time, there are longer school breaks for children, more time off for adults, and planned gatherings. For many, it also provides an opportunity to visit and reconnect with the friends and family you wait all year to see. But, as adults, we know this time can be quite overwhelming. Between traveling, hosting holiday parties, and visiting...

Benchmarks’ Center for Quality Integration (CQi) would like to say Happy Anniversary to our partners at Integrated Family Services! A year ago, the agency made the decision to join the Benchmarks’ Partnering for Excellence (PFE) initiative between Trillium Health Resources and two of their partnering child welfare organizations in Pitt and Craven counties. Since joining, Integrated Family Services (IFS) has been more than just a stellar partner. Their commitment to collaborating with...

Approximately every six weeks, each Benchmarks Center for Quality Integration team member is responsible for a blog post on our PACEs Connection page. Each month, one blog is a Partner Spotlight which highlights the incredible work happening across the state of North Carolina. For the month of May, Benchmarks Consultant, Sharron Roberts authored our partner spotlight blog where she shared about her “full-circle moment” below. My search to highlight a partner in our Pathways to Permanency...

Benchmarks recently completed implementation of the Standardized Assessment Protocol (SAP) in Burke, Rutherford, and Surry Counties, with a target population of children and youth involved in foster care. The process implemented was specifically for children and youth ages four and older, with the goal of assisting the child and family’s access to a quality, evidence-informed trauma assessment. We refer to this assessment as the Benchmarks Trauma Intensive Comprehensive Clinical Assessment...

Benchmarks would like to draw attention to the phenomenal work being done by the Cabarrus County DSS Prevention Team. The Prevention Team was established in 2018 with two social workers on a mission: ensuring families were connected to needed community resources resulting in no further referrals for mandatory services (services mandated by the state to families when Child Protective Service reports meet the general statue definition of abuse, neglect, or dependency). By focusing on the...

Benchmarks is excited to announce that another Cabarrus County Department of Human Services Child Welfare Division team will be joining the Standardized Assessment Protocol (SAP) project! This will make Cabarrus the first county to have both their Permanency Planning and In-Home Family Services (IHFS) teams onboarded into the project during the same project year. The Benchmarks SAP project is a process in which children ages four and over who enter Permanency Planning or IHFS receive a...

The importance of safe and supportive homes for youth in foster care cannot be overstated. The "Safe & Supportive Homes: Family Foster Care Recruitment and Retention" workgroup, part of Vaya's Pathways to Permanency project, has been making significant strides in enhancing the foster care experience for both children and resource families. As an extension of the highly successful virtual Treat Them Like Gold (TTLG) Learning Collaborative , the workgroup is now introducing the All-Staff...