What:   Grand Opening of the New York State Office of Children and
                                                                                        Family Services Human Services Training Center

                                                                           Where: 164 Columbia Turnpike, East Greenbush

                                                                           When:   Thursday, April 18th at 10 a.m.

Please join acting New York State Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) Commissioner Sheila J. Poole, county social services commissioners and elected officials as they cut the ribbon to celebrate the grand opening of the OCFS Human Services Training Center. The Training Center is only the second of its kind in the nation and sets the standard for the integration of technology with training. 

The Human Services Training Center will provide centralized, standardized, state-of-the-art training to human services professionals statewide, including state and county caseworkers and child welfare supervisors, voluntary agency staff, juvenile justice professionals, child care licensors and child abuse specialists, among others. More than 20,000 professionals will be trained there in 2019, and even more in years to come.

The Training Center’s 97,000 square feet includes traditional classrooms and computer laboratories as well as cutting-edge simulation rooms where human services professionals participate in hands-on training in life like environments. The simulation rooms are designed to mimic an apartment, a day care center, a group family child care program and a juvenile justice facility.

Attendees will have tours of the facility and will have the opportunity to witness trainings in the simulation rooms from behind one-way glass.  

The work done at the OCFS Human Services Training Center will help counties and not-for-profit agencies statewide by better preparing employees for work in the field, training them with industry best practices, and hopefully positively impacting employee retention.