Shahrukh Chishty is Director of Child and Family Programs for Sacramento Children’s Home in Sacramento CA.

[00:00:01] 2014 and 2015 TCOM Champions Award winner Shahrukh Chishty is the director of Child and Family Programs at Sacramento Children's Home. She started her career working with survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault before transitioning to social services. It was her work with foster youth that led Shahrukh to discover the challenges, and the rewards, awaiting those who serve those children and their families. She began our interview by sharing that her interest in psychology began years...and years ago... 


[00:01:12] Shahrukh: And so, um, you know, learning about psychology is one thing, and then applying it and the application of that is something else. I had started out a really early on volunteering at a domestic violence shelter and 


[00:02:09] Shahrukh: But I would say that's where everything started. 


[00:02:24] Shahrukh: So I had, I just had, so many different foster parents, resource parents, we call 'em now that I got to work with. Got to work with a lot of youth. And so years went on. I grew and, went on to a different agency. Aldea Children and Family Services is where I spent the bulk of my time prior to coming to Sacramento Children's Home. 


[00:02:50] Tim: So that's my next question and thank you. how did you first get connected? so how did that happen? What was your first connection with 


[00:02:58] Shahrukh: Okay, so I was [00:03:00] a brand new supervisor supervising social workers, and one of the biggest things I realized is we had amazing social workers staff. We had amazing foster parents. We had amazing leadership. And we had great partnerships with the county,who were providing placements for these, or, sending us referrals. The problem I was seeing, and I was getting puzzled because if you have good intended people, I was like, why aren't we moving forward? Why aren't we seeing the successes that we think we should be seeing? 


[00:03:47] Shahrukh: And I was very new, so I'm trying to figure out, how do we do this? I was doing extra supervision, trying to figure this out myself, getting involved. And then at that time, our executive director and my supervisor[00:04:00] had asked me if I was interested in this CANS training that was coming up. 


[00:04:26] Shahrukh: One of the pieces of this training was after you get this training, you have to develop your own take on how are you gonna go back to your agency and deliver it if you choose to deliver it. Mm-hmm. .. And so, sitting in front and, like paying attention, his delivery, hishis passion and the way he talked about, not the widgets in the systems of care, but the passion behind it. The desire to change, the desire to transform. I was like, oh my gosh. And there was structure to it. So it was like the best of both worlds, right? Yeah. We were able to measure the work that's [00:05:00] being done, but in a very humanistic way. 


[00:05:21] Shahrukh: So I came back actually while I was in the training, I was, um, sending messages to my leadership team, saying that this is amazing, we need to do this. At that time there was no mandate for foster family agencies, mental health side, if we're providing mental health services, there was not this mandate that we have to do the CANS. So we were one of the first agencies to take the CANS and implement it within our Foster family agency system. Great. And so once we implemented, of course it took a while cuz when I come back with an idea, my staff would look at me like, okay, you're crazy, you have way too much excitement for this, calm down. So I learned those were growing, [00:06:00] you know, growing pains that I learned, like when you are excited of an idea, no one yet knows why you're so excited. So baby steps. So I took my time and I explained, and I, the exercise that we had to do when we were going through this training was develop your own training. 


[00:06:31] Shahrukh: So I created a template that matched the needs of the foster youth with the statedocument, the needs and service plan, embedded the CANS in there, and then we did this trial and we were able to see some amazing initial results in 


[00:07:03] Shahrukh: Absolutely. Absolutely. So I, the initial step was of course, talking about it then training about it. 


[00:07:30] Shahrukh: The next step was also to make sure it's not a standalone, just on reports, that it's built into supervision. It's built into the case notes. When our social workers going out and meeting with the parents and children, they have some guide to make sure that they're having these conversations, but because the terminology on the CANS tool itself is very user friendly, they're able to talk about these things and they directly relate to a guide that they may have on their case notes, and then they can report on that. And then when they meet with their [00:08:00] supervisor, they're talking about this in supervision because it's built into the supervision template. 


[00:08:19] Tim: So so you're doing, so you're doing this work, 


[00:08:31] Shahrukh: So, yeah, again, that was a big surprise. I had no idea I was getting that, but I think it was exactly this, the implementation, like taking that at the level of staff and families and the actual implementation of that embedded into our day-to-day practice. 


[00:09:25] Shahrukh: Nice. 


[00:09:34] Shahrukh: Yeah. So I will say Covid put a damper on a lot of things. I did end up so I was at Aldea for a very long time, almost nine years. And then, I came, had the honor of coming to Sacramento Children's Home. And so right now my work, we're just really, the world is opening up, just trying to figure out how to really do things and create some systems in place. My goal is, currently, right now, the programs that I work with, I do a lot of prevention work. [00:10:00] And Dr. Lyons was so generous to meet with me early on when I started my job here to see how we can bring TCOM, CANS, FAST, so the tools, the great array of tools that could be utilized on the prevention side of things. 


[00:10:35] Shahrukh: So really excited to see how we can utilize that at thevery family level on the prevention side of things. 


[00:10:50] Tim: So what you're doing right now is also what you're waiting to see, how it really comes to fruition in the future. Is that where you'd say you are [00:11:00] with these ideas? 


[00:11:15] Shahrukh: So my hope would be is to kind of create those same systems instead of using you know, a lot of, we have a lot of great tools, but how can we enhance those tools even more with putting some systems in place. Of course right now our team is much, I have a larger team and there's a lot more complications and a lot more nuances to some of the systems that we have to abide by, some of the contractual rules and all of that. And then training staff. 


[00:11:59] Tim: Okay,[00:12:00] end of the day, you turn off the computer, you turn off the lights in your office, and you leave TCOM sort of behind for a while, what do you wanna do when you, when you leave the office behind on a nice, a nice weekend day? 


[00:12:30] Shahrukh: We have currently six, wonderful, fur babies and feather babies, Yeah. So, and then, I have a love for music. so that keeps me 


[00:12:45] Tim: You've been really super generous to tell me your story, It was, it's, very interesting and easy to follow, and you've done such a great job of sharing all of that with us. I really appreciate it. 


[00:13:06] Shahrukh: So, I don't know, I still haven't figured out how Dr. Lyons does it, where he's able to be everywhere around the globe, but yet still be connected to people that may have a question like me--a nerdy person that attended the class and was like really excited. And I will say we absolutely could not do what we were able to do at my agency without the direct support of Dr. Lyons. Like, I would send him an email, he would like, I don't know how he did it, no matter what timeframe or wherever he was in the world, he was able to respond back to me. 


[00:13:55] Tim: That's, that's cool to hear you say that. He's uh,he's the kind of guy who [00:14:00] just can meet you where you are and communicate with you and I'm sure when you're like in the trenches doing something that's in his wheelhouse, he must be an incredible, resource and mentor, and support for all of that. 


[00:14:16] Tim: I appreciate it. Great to talk to you. Have a great afternoon. You too, Tim.