Benchmarks Empowers Communities: Using Our Insights to Inform Training

Over the past decade, Benchmarks has been deeply engaged in collaborative efforts with various child-serving systems, striving to enhance the quality of care provided to children and families. Central to our approach is the "Center," which focuses on developing, implementing, and supporting small-scale test projects involving partners from diverse sectors such as child welfare, managed care, county government, public health, schools, and behavioral health providers. These projects aim to evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of best practices, paving the way for potential statewide implementation and improved outcomes for children and families.?

Despite the successes we've achieved, we recognize the disparities in communities' capacity to undertake large-scale projects, despite facing similar challenges. Through our work, we've identified gaps in system knowledge. Addressing these gaps is crucial to fostering a comprehensive understanding and effective approach within child-serving systems.?

As a result, we've prioritized distilling the lessons learned from our robust pilot projects into accessible trainings for professionals and communities. Our trainings highlight key findings, lessons learned, and gaps addressed through our on-the-ground experiences. For instance, our Child Trauma and Adult Trauma curriculums delve into the impact of trauma and resilience not only on children but also on adults and the consequent implications for the services provided to families.?

Recognizing the need for practical, on-the-ground skills, we've invested in offering trainings such as the “Community Resiliency Model” (CRM), aimed at equipping participants with skills for interacting with children and families in their daily lives. Additionally, our “Child Wellbeing Decisions of Magnitude” training and “Supportive Supervision” workshop series help staff and supervisors understand their roles and the ripple effects of their responses, decisions, and reactions on families' long-term success.?

In addition to informing policy and practice at the state and local levels, our training programs serve as another avenue for disseminating our findings to a broader audience. If you're interested in learning more about our training programs and how they can benefit your agency or community, please visit our website and explore our training catalog or reach out to Paige Wiggs (pwiggs@benchmarksnc.org).??

We are excited that our experiences have provided us with the opportunity to share our knowledge with others and look forward to supporting our partners who engage in this vital work every day!?