Simulation Training

During Pre-Service training, new Case Managers participate in simulation labs (sim labs) to gain an understanding of situations they may experience in the field. The sim lab's mission is to provide realistic experiences in a safe, interactive environment to develop the Case Manager's skill sets, competencies, and practice.

Participants will gain an understanding of the 4th Amendment and its application when interacting with the Department's service population through role-play activities such as entering a home, accepting informed consent and the revocation of informed consent, searching the home, and conducting a removal.

Participants will also learn the importance of engagement in building trusting relationships with families, including demonstrating mutual respect, interest, and an understanding of the family's culture, as well as utilizing motivational interviewing strategies to engage families.

Sim lab participants also develop assessment skills that will help inform staff at critical junctures throughout the case, including situational awareness, identifying risk and safety factors, identifying protective factors, and conducting open-ended interviews.

Through sibling interviews, participants will understand the need to identify all children involved in the case, as well as the importance of conducting separate interviews for each child to assess service needs.

Diligent search builds the participant's knowledge and skills to engage families in exploring potential whereabouts of absent parents as well as other relatives, kin, and family connections to provide informal supports, including identifying potential caregivers for children.

Finally, participants will understand the importance of and requirements around confidentiality, including state and federal regulations around protecting referent identity. Staff will demonstrate the ability to discuss all concerns in the body of a referral without disclosing identifying information regarding the referent.

Poverty Simulations offer a unique learning opportunity for participants to gain a better understanding of the realities of poverty faced by low-income families. Through role-play, participants are tasked with providing basic necessities and shelter on a limited budget during the course of a week. This simulation allows participants to experience obstacles families face in meeting these needs while navigating interactions with community members such as human service workers, police officers, bill collections, job interviewers, and others. The simulation is designed to sensitize participants to and to create a broader awareness of the realities of poverty.

The Department of Children's Services is excited to offer Case Managers the opportunity to learn using the Accenture Virtual Experience Solution (AVENUES). Through immersion, reflection, and analysis, participants will build confidence in the choices they make once they enter the field.

AVENUES immerses users in a highly realistic experience designed to evoke a response using actors filmed on a green screen and stitched into carefully dressed locations. The experience is voice activated so the user has the sense that they are sitting across the table from another person who is looking them in the eye and conversing. Next, users will debrief how they behaved in the scenarios, using the opportunity to learn from one another. Finally, AVENUES is maintained on a platform that leverages user analytics. This allows us to see how large groups of people behave in the headset and drive future learning agendas.

While AVENUES is anchored in virtual reality, the real learning takes place when the headset comes off. The opportunity to discuss and unpack the VR portion of AVENUES allows users to reflect on their experience and forge the path to deeper understanding of how they form opinions about the families they work with.

text adapted from the AVENUES companion manual