Program Goals

The goals of Hope Enhancement for Child Welfare are:

• Understand the impact of employee burnout on personal well-being and professional effectiveness
• Reduce employee burnout
• Recognize the significance of secondary traumatic stress
• Implement strategies to mitigate secondary traumatic stress
• Acquire knowledge of hope theory
• Comprehend the evidence from research 
• Learn about the impact of trauma, stress, and adversity on goal development, pathway strategies, and attention and how these factors can diminish hope.
• Develop practical techniques to restore and maintain hope in oneself and others
• Identify strategies to improve the work environment

Logic Model

View the Logic Model for Hope Enhancement for Child Welfare.

Essential Components

The essential components of Hope Enhancement for Child Welfare include:

• Based on hope:
• The belief that the future can be better than our past and that we have a role to play in making that future a reality
• Defined as the positive expectation of the future and is grounded in three simple elements:
• Goals
• Pathways
• Willpower
• Different than self-efficacy and optimism
• Vital coping resource and protective factor for children, adults, and families across the lifespan
• Hope theory:
• Associated with the segment of modern psychology research known as positive psychology
• Within positive psychology, hope is a malleable character strength
• Hope Enhancement Training General Information:
• Part of the Hope Centered and Trauma Informed^® Training series
• Aims to promote a culture of well-being for both the workforce and clients receiving services
• Can be deployed to support the organization’s mission to design and deliver high-quality child welfare and other human service professionals to help achieve the workforce's safety, independence, and overall well-being
• Designed to reduce the negative stress experienced by child welfare professionals, specifically job burnout and secondary traumatic stress
• Hope Enhancement for Child Welfare specifics:
• Four-hour training
• Delivery options:
• In person by a qualified trainer
• Deployed in the organization using a developed online course deployed in the organization’s Learning Management System
• Course methodologies:
• PowerPoint presentations
• Interactive worksheets
• Quizzes
• Teaches skills associated with hope:
• Goal setting
• Pathways development
• Willpower alignment
• Train-the-Trainer process:
• For Child welfare and related human service organizations that want to implement the Hope Enhancement training
• Must complete a 12-hour (two-day) train-the-trainer process called the Hope Navigator.
• Hope Navigators are designed to become a sustainability strategy to provide onboarding of new child welfare workers.
• Structured into four comprehensive units:
• Introduction to the Science of Hope:
• Definition and fundamental tenets of hope: Goals, pathways, and willpower
• Distinction between hope and other personal strengths like resiliency, optimism, and self-efficacy
• The Process of Hope: Where Do You Focus Your Attention?
• Examples of using hope in daily experiences
• Understanding future-focused (worry, fear, hope) vs. past-focused (guilt, shame, rumination, nostalgia) attention
• The Impact of Adversity on Hope:
• Effects of stress, adversity, and trauma on goal pursuit and pathway exploration
• Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and workplace trauma on hopeful thinking
• Practice Strategies to Nurture Hope:
• Skills-building strategies to nurture and restore hopeful thinking
• Hope-centered goal setting through interactive small group exercises
• Guided conversations to clarify goals, identify pathways, and generate specific benchmarks
• Willpower-building discussions to create future memories of success
• Application of hope tenets (goals, pathways, willpower) to professional and personal contexts

Program Delivery

Recommended Intensity:

One 4-hour training

Recommended Duration:

Once the agency workforce is trained, they will incorporate it into usual agency practice.

Delivery Setting

This program is typically conducted in a(n):

• Public Child Welfare Agency (Dept. of Social Services, etc.)

Homework

This program does not include a homework component.

Resources Needed to Run Program

The typical resources for implementing the program are:

Power Point, copier for handouts, projectors, screens. Online learning management system for online course only.

Manuals and Training

Prerequisite/Minimum Provider Qualifications

Facilitator must complete the train-the-trainer program. Trainers must be established child welfare professionals familiar to trauma. No minimal education required.

Manual Information

There is a manual that describes how to deliver this program.

Program Manual(s)

Manual details:

• Hellman, C. M., & Pharris, A. B. (2024). Hope navigator training participant guide. [Unpublished Guide].

The manual can be obtained by contacting the program representative (see contact information at bottom of page) and after completing the train-the-trainer training.

Training Information

There is training available for this program.

Training Contacts:

• Angela Pharris
  angelapharris@gmail.com
  phone: (615) 427-8386
• Chan Hellman
  chanhellman.com
  chanmhellman@gmail.com
  phone: (918) 576-8760 x4

Training Type/Location:

Interested organization must contact the training contract; can be delivered virtually or in-person

Number of days/hours:

12-hour training (2-day) plus ongoing observations and or check-ins

Implementation Information

Pre-Implementation Materials

There are no pre-implementation materials to measure organizational or provider readiness for Hope Enhancement for Child Welfare.

Formal Support for Implementation

There is formal support available for implementation of Hope Enhancement for Child Welfare as listed below:

Formal support is required for implementation. This includes train-the-trainer and ongoing participation in a community of practice which meets virtually. Facilitator guides, training materials, guides for ongoing workforce development will be provided. Support is available for the duration of the training contract. Formal support also includes leadership coaching and optional support for fidelity monitoring or systems change management. Additional support may include use of fidelity measures for hope centered organizational self-assessment.

Fidelity Measures

There are fidelity measures for Hope Enhancement for Child Welfare as listed below:

Workforce Measures are suggested but not required for implementation:

• Adult Hope Scale:
• An-8 item measure that examines pathways and willpower component of hope
• Validated measure
• Publicly available

• Oldenburg Burnout Inventory (OLBI):
• 16-item measure for jobs demands and job resources
• Publicly available

• Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale:
• 17-item scale that measures the degree to which employees recognize their own trauma from work exposure
• Publicly available

Established Psychometrics:

Bride, M. D., Robinson, M. M., Yegidis, B., & Figley, C. R. (2004). Development and validation of the secondary traumatic stress scale. Research on Social Work Practice, 14(1), 27–35. https://doi.org/10.1300/j394v04n03_05

Demerouti, E., Bakker, A. B., Vardakou, I., & Kantas, A. (2003). The convergent validity of two burnout instruments: A multitrait-multimethod analysis. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 19(1), 12. https://doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759.19.1.12

Hellman, C. M., Pittman, M. K., & Munoz, R. T. (2013). The first twenty years of the will and the ways: An examination of score reliability distribution on Snyder’s dispositional hope scale. Journal of Happiness Studies, 14(3), 723–729. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-012-9351-5

Snyder, C. R., Harris, C., Anderson, J. R., Holleran, S. A., Irving, L. M., Sigmon, S. T., Yoshinobu, L., Gribb, J., Langelle, C., & Harney, P. (1991). The will and the ways: Development and validation of an individual measure of hope. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 60(4), 570–585. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.60.4.570

Implementation Guides or Manuals

There are implementation guides or manuals for Hope Enhancement for Child Welfare as listed below:

Implementation guides are available upon licensing agreement. Contact one of the Training Contacts above for more information.

Implementation Cost

There are no studies of the costs of Hope Enhancement for Child Welfare.

Research on How to Implement the Program

Research has been conducted on how to implement Hope Enhancement for Child Welfare as listed below:

Pharris, A. B. (2024). The protective effects of hope training on the human service workforce burnout and secondary traumatic stress. Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership & Governance, 49(2), 123–134. https://doi.org/10.1080/23303131.2024.2388726

Relevant Published, Peer-Reviewed Research

Additional References