Children and Family Services Training Center, Department of Social Work, UND

Customer Service in Child Welfare All material copied with permission from “Using Customer Service concepts to Enhance Recruitment and Retention Practices”, a publication of the National Resource Center for Diligent Recruitment at AdoptUSKids. You may view the entire resource guide at the CFSTC website/Foster Parent Recruitment and Retention Tools.

The term “customer” applied within child welfare may seem simplistic and a little off-putting to some child welfare professionals and families. In order for this application of a customer service framework to work in the child welfare field, we must recognize and honor the fact that child welfare work is different and much more complex than the traditional business of selling products or services. Foster, adoptive, and kinship families—and certainly child welfare staff—don’t usually perceive themselves as customers. Families’ roles are unique to child welfare and evolve over time, ideally, to becoming team members and partners. Knowing this, it is essential to respect and treat families as customers first, as a key step to helping develop trusting professional relationships and partnerships between families and an agency. In short, good customer service should be seen as the foundation to building relationships that result in safety, timely permanency, and well-being for the children served.

Each participant in the child welfare system, from the person who sweeps the floor, to the agency director, to the judge, to the foster, adoptive, or kinship family, must feel like a valued member of the team and take the act of providing good customer service to heart. They must all see themselves as empowered to achieve the collective goals and mission of ensuring safety, permanency, and well-being for children. Good customer service is everybody’s business. Good customer service is a continual process of improvement, touching all processes, relationships, and people in

A startling statistic: Almost half of foster parents quit within a

year of their first placement. Twenty to twenty-five percent of

foster parents quit each year and another quarter express

uncertainty about continuing.

Below is a link to an article from Fostering

Families Today magazine on how

agencies can better assess, prepare, and

support foster families.

“Why are Foster Parents Leaving? What Foster Parents

Want Their Agencies to Know “

“

June 2014

C F S T C Children and Family

Services Training Center

Department of Social Work

University of North Dakota

the agency and those served by it. It is more than just a one-time, feel-good initiative, or the responsibility of a single department or individual.

Why are Foster Parents Leaving?

What foster parents want their agencies

to know.

Recruitment and Retention is published by the UND Children and Family

Services Training Center under the sponsorship of the Division of Children and

Family Services, North Dakota Department of Human Services. It is intended for

all foster parents, foster care providers, and child welfare agencies.

Comments should be directed to the Training Center.

Children and Family Services Training Center, Department of Social Work, UND

June 2014

If you have questions or would like more information about diligent

recruitment, contact the Children & Family Services Training Center:

Lisa Piche, LSW Recruitment and Retention Specialist

lisa.piche@und.edu 701-777-3442 (Main Office)

701-741-1865 (Mobile)

Every Month is Customer Service Month In child welfare work, responsive, helpful, respectful service to all of our key partners should be a part of our work every day and every month. The following tips offer simple ways to infuse customer service principles into your work. To see the entire document with tips for every day of the month, click on the link at the bottom of the page.

Tips for Customer Service ¨ Think about your favorite place to shop or your favorite

restaurant. What do they do to provide great customer service? What tips could you borrow from them to apply in your work with families?

¨ Has one of your colleagues been particularly helpful to you recently? Send them a quick thank you note by email and copy their supervisor. You can help create a culture that recognizes great customer service, even among colleagues.

¨ When talking to foster, adoptive, or kinship parents today, ask them, “What’s something my agency could do to help you feel like you are being served well?” Share the feedback with your colleagues.

¨ Start conversations with your co-workers at lunch about their best customer service experiences. Brainstorm ways that you can each incorporate those ideas into your work.

¨ Think about questions that prospective foster and adoptive parents ask you. Develop a short document with answers to these questions to share with all prospective parents.

¨ Think about terminology you use in your work that might be confusing for families. Brainstorm alternative terms to use to be more plainspoken and clear without being condescending.

¨ Take a few moments to celebrate your successes in providing good customer service and support to families.

Every Month is Customer Service Month

Child welfare is essentially relational.

Success in meeting case goals depends on true

family engagement and teamwork. Families

are more likely to collaborate and be

responsive to agency requests when treated as valued members of

the team.

To learn more about the PRO Framework, see Pages 15—20 of

“Using Customer Service concepts to Enhance

Recruitment and Retention Practices”

PRO Framework for Customer Service

P—Processes R—Relationships O—Organization