In 2004, the Healthy Families/Thriving Communities Collaborative Council’s (Council), Executive Director and other key staff attended Cornell University in New York for the Family Development Credentialing (FDC) training at which time they became certified FDC Instructors.
An agreement between the Council and Cornell University was made in 2004 designating the Council as the sole provider for the FDC program in the District of Columbia. In addition to providing training, the Council is responsible for coordinating the FDC program in the District of Columbia.
Family Development Credential Overview:
The Cornell Family Development Credential (FDC) Program emerged in the mid-1990s from research-policy collaboration between the Department of Human Development from Cornell University’s College of Human Ecology, and the Work Group on Family Support created by New York State’s Council on Children and Families (CCF). This Interagency Workgroup invited Cornell University into the discussion because of their work in training human service worker in a strength based approach. The result of this work group was the Family Development Credentialing Program. They decided to begin training frontline workers and later specialized training was expanded to agency supervisors.
What is the Family Development Training and Credentialing Program?
The Family Development Training and Credentialing (FDC) Program is a training program for frontline workers designed to reorient human service practice to the family support approach. It offers a research-based comprehensive curriculum in family support principals, which significantly improves the ability of frontline workers to help the families and individuals they work with to set and reach their own goals.
In this training the following Family Development skills and competencies are reviewed and studied:
- Family Development: A Sustainable Route To Healthy Self- Reliance
- Communicating with Skill and Heart
- Taking Good Care of Yourself
- Diversity
- Strengths-based Assessment
- Helping Families Set and Reach Goals
- Helping Families Access Specialized Services
- Home Visiting
- Facilitating Family Conferences, Support Groups and Community Meetings
- Collaboration
The FDC curriculum teaches workers the family development process, which begins first and foremost with the family worker developing a respectful partnership. After assessing the family needs and strengths, the family then sets its own major goal- goals are not set for them. The worker assists the family in making a written plan with the responsibility for tasks divided between the family and the worker; the plan is continually updated. This process strengthens families, empowering them to be more self-reliant and thus better able to handle future challenges.
Participants receive approximately 90 hours of classroom instruction. Technical assistance is provided to students through a trained portfolio advisor who guides the student through the FDC process and portfolio development. Each student develops a portfolio that applies FDC concepts to their everyday work experience.
After successful completion of classroom instructions, a standardized exam, and portfolio development, workers receive thier credentialing.
“Within each person lies a bone-deep longing for freedom, self-respect, hope, and the chance to make an important contribution to one’s family, community, and the world. Without healthy outlets for this longing, the desire for freedom turns into lawlessness, the need for self respect is expressed in aggression and violence, and hopelessness is translated into dependency, depression and substance abuse. No government program can help families become self-reliant, integrated members of their communities unless it is built on a recognition of the power of this bone-deep longing for freedom, self-respect, hope and the chance to contribute.” Claire Forest
