Customer

WI Division of Children and Family Services

Project

Effects of Abuse & Neglect

Customer Need

Develop an interactive learning tool to help social workers familiarize themselves with the stages of typical child development.

Description

As an introductory component of DCFS' training curriculum, the Effects of Abuse & Neglect site provides a sampling of childhood concerns and issues for users without attempting to be comprehensive. For this reason, the site's division includes two main sections: a background area, exposing users to some of the high-level trends and patterns for each stage of development; and an activities area, where the users apply this background knowledge to various scenarios by assessing a child's development in relation to his or her age.

The activities area contains three exercises specifically designed for this Effects of Abuse & Neglect site: Guess the Age, Select the Milestone, and Identify the Red Flags. The first exercise, Guess the Age, provides a child's story or background, then requires the user to select the described age from multiple options. Whether the user's choice is correct or incorrect, feedback is immediately provided to give confirmation or correction, and includes the rationale behind such feedback. The second exercise, Select the Milestone, is a kind of inverse of Guess the Age, in that the user sees the child's age, and then must select the corresponding behavioral trends and developments from multiple choices. As before, immediate feedback alerts the user to the accuracy or inaccuracy of a given response, and explains why. Finally, Identify the Red Flags provides a child's age and an overview of his or her developmental background and behavioral trends, and then asks the user to identify problems or alarms with the given child's scenario; this mirrors the real-life need to assess a child's developmental and environmental conditions. Again, feedback provides justification for the rightness or wrongness of various user responses.

Through these exercises, the user is able to gain a foundation of knowledge and ability in the assessment of a child's development. The online component of this DCFS training then facilitates continued learning and discussion in a more traditional classroom setting. The toolbox to deliver this included: XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Photoshop.

Access the Effects of Abuse & Neglect training site at http://www.wcwts.wisc.edu/childdevelopment/

If you would like further information on this project and its development, please contact Greg Konop at 608.265.6485 or gkonop@doit.wisc.edu.