Training professionals in community settings: Change processes and outcomes in a child protection context

Abstract

This article reports an action-research focused on the improvement of a training program for professionals working with multi-challenged families with at-risk or maltreated children. The program aimed at the implementation of a multi-systemic, collaborative and strength-based family assessment and intervention model. Outcome evaluation results indicate that professionals improved their skills and achieved minimal competence. Process evaluation reveals that participating in the training has been a transformative experience and highlights facilitator and constraining conditions for participants’ learning and changing as well as suggestions for improvement of the training program. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

Keywords

• training
• systemic thinking
• community-based practice
• multi-challenged families
• case-study