Speaker: Stacy Tuxhorn, New Employee Supervisor, DCF
Give an example of how using the KPM tools has positively affected a child/family?
Stacy Tuxhorn: One time I had a kid who would only refer to himself as Batman. Batman was having a hard time understanding my question of what makes him worried or nervous. So I got out the wizard tool, had him name his wizard, and of course, he named it Batman. And then I pointed to the triangle or the body part of the wizard and explained to him that you know, sometimes when Batman is worried or nervous, his tummy will feel different. So then I asked him to tell me something or tell me about a time when he was nervous or worried and his tummy felt different. I asked it in this way and used this tool to get a better understanding of what might be going, you know through his head or what his thought processes is and trying a different approach to explain what we would see as the worries column or the worry - the House of Worries on the Three Houses.
What’s your favorite KPM tool and why?
Stacy Tuxhorn: My favorite KPM tool or tools would have to be the Wizard and the Fairy. I really like using these tools with the younger kiddos, because I believe it helps them put things into a different perspective or it helps them understand you know - what you might be asking when interviewing. So kids maybe like ages 4-5 range and then up to about the 9-year-old range is typically when I would use the Fairy or the Wizard depending on what they chose. Kids in those age ranges just have big imaginations and, and I like to be, I like to expand on their imagination, but also use these tools in an effective way to interview them and understand what might be going on in the home or what might be happening with them.
What tool are you using that has surprised you, because initially you didn’t think you would use that tool?
Stacy Tuxhorn: The tool that surprised me the most would be the three columns of the 2019, the 'worries column', that 'what's working well' column and 'what needs to happen' column. On my first page of the 2019, what I typically do was I would go out, talk to the parents and say, 'Okay, tell me what happened after reviewing the report and I would just start writing on that first page about what happened. From there, if I heard worries, I would flip to my worries, column and write down my worries. When I got to the three columns of the 2019, I like to use that as a segue into a deeper conversation. I would reflect on telling them what I had heard their worries would be and ask them if they had more worries. From there, I would ask them as a puzzle piece, I would say, what is working well or what have you tried to help mitigate or lessen these worries that we have identified. From there, I would go over, you know, what's been working well and what hasn't been working well if they decide to tell me that and then we go to 'what needs to happen?' From there, I'm able to say, okay, these are the things that you have been using that have been working well or the things that you have tried, what do you feel needs to happen to continue using these practices and there we can talk about services and we can talk about um other steps that might need to be taken or DCF involvement is still needed beyond the investigation process. I think that these are good segway pieces and tools, to allow the family to express what they're feeling beyond just what's on the report.
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