Employees of the Child Welfare Training Center at California State University, Long Beach home will vacate the Foundation Building on State University Drive at the end of June.
The center hosted one of its last training sessions Monday. The decision to close the center is based on the need to merge the training locations taking part in the Inter-University Consortium on Child Welfare in Southern California.
“Centralizing the training centers makes training more convenient,” Center Director Monica Malin said.
Each location will close and combine in order to make a headquarters in Downtown Los Angeles.
The CWTC is one of six university programs in Southern California that takes part in Title-IV training program to prepare newly hired DCFS Children’s Social Workers and the ongoing education and professional development of the Department’s staff, according to the CWTC website.
Each university trains social workers in L.A. County, which consists of the social work graduate programs at CSULB, California State University, Los Angeles, University of Southern California, University of California Los Angeles, California State University, Northridge and California State University, Dominguez Hills.
At the training session, entitled Sexual Health Conversation, participants learned how to address sexual health with foster youths.
The CWTC partnered with the L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services and the Harvey Institute to develop curriculum that introduces the concept of discussing sexual health with foster youth and their caregivers, Malin said.
“The goal [of the training] is to become comfortable with addressing sexual health as conversations with foster youth organically occur,” Trainer and Licensed Clinical Social Worker Al Killen-Harvey said.
For over 20 years, Los Angeles County has provided multimillion dollar funding to these programs, Malin said. The training center at CSULB receives an average of $3 million, which must be renewed every three years for training, research and internships.
Los Angeles County saw a rise in the number of unwanted teen pregnancies within the foster care system, Malin said. In order to address the issue, the director of the DCFS identified training to reduce those numbers.
According to a 2011 National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy article, teen girls in foster care are two times more likely to become pregnant by age 19 than their peers not in foster care.
It took over two years to get approval for the training, and in January a county-wide roll out began making the sexual health training mandatory for all social workers in L.A. county, including interns and other staff, Malin said.
“It’s not an option,” Malin said. “It’s a requirement, which we’re very excited about because that means it’s going to reach the whole population.”
The training focused on suspending judgment when discussing sexual health with clients, defining sexual health language and how to become comfortable with discussing the issue with foster youth.
“Trying to ease the discomfort of social workers so they can actually have those conversations is a big step,” Malin said. “Because even if you’re a social worker, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re comfortable with addressing [sexual health].”
Trainer Doug Braun-Harvey from the Harvey Institute said that he recommends asking foster youth and caregivers what sexual health expectations they have for the children. Braun-Harvey is a Marriage and Family Therapist, Certified Group Psychotherapist and Certified Sex Therapist.
“Most people are better at talking about what they don’t want sexually,” Braun- Harvey said.
CSULB students can attend Sexual Health Awareness Workshops at Student Health Services.