Tennessee Department of Children’s Services (DCS) Launches NTI and Supports Strategic Transfer of Learning!
Tennessee continues to encourage staff and community providers to participate in NTI training for better outcomes!
The Tennessee Department of Children Services worked with the Center for Adoption Support and Education (C.A.S.E.) to pilot the National Adoption Competency Mental Health Training Initiative (NTI) for mental health and child welfare professionals who serve children that are moving to, or have achieved permanency through adoption or guardianship. Over 1200 child welfare workers across Tennessee (800+ DCS caseworkers and 330+ provider agency caseworkers) enrolled in the 20+ hour online training and over 930 (over 74% enrollees) have successfully completed the training.
Tennessee integrated the NTI training into the state’s Learning Management System (LMS) and it is available to all staff and our providers. Information about access to the training may be located on the Department’s website. Child welfare professionals and mental health professionals who are not in the Edison system are able to access web-based training via the NTI website. Tennessee continues to encourage staff and community providers to participate in the training and offers support in accessing the training.
In 2021, Tennessee extended an invitation to staff to join a three-part virtual NTI Transfer of Learning (TOL) Supervisor Coaching series. DCS and NTI will partner to establish these online coaching sessions with staff from NTI and our staff who have completed the training. These coaching sessions will focus on topics such as how to support children to heal from trauma and loss, how to provide parents with skills to parent more effectively, how to improve outcomes for permanency and much more.
For more information about Tennessee’s NTI integration, please contact Sirena Wilson, Training and Professional Development Project Manager: Sirena.Y.Wilson@tn.gov. Learn more about NTI trainings: https://bit.ly/36YU6XZ. If you’d like to bring NTI to your organization, please reach out to the NTI Team.
