Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services

Secondary Traumatic Stress, Burnout and Resilience in the Child Welfare Workforce: Early Results from Nebraska’s Randomized Controlled Trial of Resilience Alliance
Posted on August 9, 2021

Early results from the study of Nebraska's Resilience Alliance intervention indicate that it may mitigate burnout and support resilience among some segments of the child welfare workforce.

CFS Strong–Building a Resilient Workforce (known as CFS Strong) was the intervention designed as part of the QIC-WD project to address secondary traumatic stress (STS) among child welfare workers and supervisors in Nebraska’s Division of Children and Family Services (DCFS) agency (for more information see the Site Overview). CFS Strong included multiple components:

The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) is a multi-service agency led by a Chief Executive Officer (CEO), who is appointed by the Governor. The CEO oversees six divisions including the Division of Children and Family Services (DCFS), which is the state’s child welfare agency. The divisions are supported by centralized operations that include Human Resources (HR) & Development. HR has at least one individual with a strong working knowledge of DCFS operations and who is specifically assigned to provide support solely to DCFS.

Each QIC-WD site developed a logic model to serve as a visual representation of their selected intervention. All logic models included four main components: inputs, activities, outputs, and outcomes. Collectively, these demonstrate the resources and actions required to implement the program, as well as the associated result or changes anticipated through implementation of the program. The hypothesized relationships are represented by the pathways connecting the listed activities and anticipated outcomes. For more information see Site Overview.

Implementation Overview - Addressing Work-related Traumatic Stress
Posted on April 30, 2021

The QIC-WD worked with Nebraska Division of Children and Family Services (DCFS) to establish an implementation team to lead the development and implementation of their intervention.

The Critical Role of Child Welfare Workers
Posted on September 21, 2020

This short blog post and video highlight the critical role that child welfare workers play on the frontlines; managing threats to their own safety while working to keep children safe.

Addressing Work-related Traumatic Stress

“It’s extremely important that we have a continuum of care, much like we do for the families that we serve,” said one Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services Children and Family Services (CFS) Area Administrator. He is part of the team that partnered with the QIC-WD to create CFS Strong – Building a Resilient Workforce to address secondary traumatic stress (STS) among frontline staff and supervisors.

Read more about Addressing Work-related Traumatic Stress

My Experience with CFS Strong
Posted on July 16, 2020

This blog post is written by a supervisor in Nebraska who is part of the implementation team and participated in CFS Strong.

Building Resilience and Optimism – The Experience of a Nebraska Child and Family Services Specialist
Posted on July 9, 2020

In this video, Gage Latscha, a Nebraska Child and Family Services Specialist discusses the importance of optimism in his job.

Building Resilience and Optimism – The Experience of a Nebraska Child and Family Services Specialist

Optimism, or positive thinking, can be learned and is important to building resilience. By developing a practice of reframing and controlling self-defeating statements automatic negative thoughts can be replaced with positive ones. By focusing on the positive, individuals are more apt to remain hopeful, resilient, and focus their energy on things they are able to control.

Watch the Video