Safety Organized Practice

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Safety Organized Practice – Arkansas DCFS

Overview

Safety Organized Practice (SOP) is a collaborative, strengths-based approach used by the Arkansas Division of Children and Family Services (DCFS) to enhance child welfare decision-making. SOP integrates best practices from solution-focused, trauma-informed, and structured decision-making approaches to improve child safety, permanency, and well-being.

Core Principles of SOP

Family Engagement: Prioritizing open communication and collaboration with families to create sustainable safety plans.
Shared Decision-Making: Encourages teamwork between Family Service Workers, supervisors, families, and community partners.
Strength-Based Approach: Identifying family strengths and protective factors to build long-term solutions.
Trauma-Informed Practices: Addressing past trauma and its impact on child and family outcomes.

Key SOP Strategies & Tools

Three-Column Mapping: Helps family services workers, families, and network members organize concerns, strengths, and next steps.
Harm and Danger Statements: Clearly outlines past harm and future safety risks in a way families can understand.
Safety Networks: Engages extended family and community supports in the safety planning process.
Three Houses/Safety House: Engages children and youth in safety planning and in creating steps needed to keep them safe and/or return them to their home.
Appreciative Inquiry & Solution-Focused Questions: Encourages positive conversations to identify workable solutions and maintain rigorous and balanced assessment at every stage.
Structured Decision-Making: Promotes consistency throughout the state with decisions and provides support for the decisions.
Supervisory Coaching & Case Consultation: Strengthens decision-making through guided discussions and critical thinking exercises.
Common Language: Provides a common language for the family, all DCFS staff who work with the family, all network members, and stakeholders to use and understand what is happening.

Who Benefits from SOP?

Children, Youth & Families: Ensures families are actively involved in creating and maintaining safety plans.
DCFS Family Service Workers & Supervisors: Provides structured tools to assess risk, safety, and case planning.
Community Partners: Enhances collaboration with service providers, courts, and advocacy groups to support family reunification and child well-being.

Training & Implementation

MidSOUTH, in partnership with Arkansas DCFS, provides ongoing SOP training for Family Service Workers, supervisors, and stakeholders. Training sessions cover foundational SOP principles, hands-on practice with tools, strategies for implementing SOP in day-to-day work, and provide an awareness of assessments and tools used with the families of Arkansas.