BSW/MSW education funded by Title IV-E of Social Security Act ("Title IV-E Child Welfare Education") is an important incentive to encourage social workers to stay in the child protection field. It aims to demonstrate the training partnership between universities and public child welfare agencies. This book contains essential research results with a focus on the impact of Title IV-E Child Welfare Education to improve worker capacities and case outcomes, as well as on the process and results of social work education in promoting public child welfare work. There are nine chapters written by renowned researchers in public child welfare who applied rigorous quantitative and/or qualitative methodologies to clearly describe measures used, data sources, outcome variables, and implications for education, practice, policy, and research. These evidence-based articles address the following child welfare topics: training partnerships and worker outcomes, effective pedagogy and online education, workplace climate and retention factors, and other topics connecting BSW/MSW education to public child welfare practice. Future child welfare education will need to further expand child welfare knowledge and skills, strengthen worker competencies with a strong commitment to social work values and ethical practice principles, and develop a cohesive supervisory network to build a workforce with positive attitude toward child protection programs. This collection will inform child welfare educators, administrators and legislators regarding the impact of Title IV-E Child Welfare Education on the development of public child welfare and make recommendations to improve the child welfare curriculum in social work education. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Public Child Welfare.

Within a historical and contemporary context, this book examines major policy practice and research issues as they jointly shape child welfare practice and its future. In addition to describing the major problems facing the field, the book highlights service innovations that have been developed in recent years. The resulting picture is encouraging, especially if certain major program reforms I are implemented and agencies are able to concentrate resources in a focused manner. The volume emphasizes families and children whose primary recourse to services has been through publicly funded child welfare agencies. The book considers historical areas of service—foster care and adoptions, in-home family-centered services, child-protective services, and residential services—where social work has an important role. Authors address the many fields of practice in which child and family services are provided or that involve substantial numbers of social work programs, such as services to adolescent parents, child mental health, education, and juvenile justice agencies. This new edition will continue to serve as a fundamen­tal introduction for new practitioners, as well as summary of recent developments for experienced practitioners.

Briar-Lawson (social welfare, U. of Albany, NY) and Zlotnick (Institute for the Advancement of Social Work Research) overview the workforce crisis in the field and efforts to build collaborations between social work education programs and child welfare agencies. A dozen papers discuss aspects and case studies of partnerships, curricula, training, and Federal funding. Co-published simultaneously as Journal of human behavior in the social environment, v.7, nos.1/2, 2003. (The CiP incorrectly lists the journal publication date as 2002.) Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

Since the 1980s, child welfare agencies and social work programs in more than 40 states have come together to address recruitment and retention issues by preparing social work students for child welfare practice—and to enhance the delivery of child welfare services. This book documents the outcomes of these partnerships to help you assess their value and sustainability! Evaluation Research in Child Welfare: Improving Outcomes Through University-Public Agency Partnerships is a critical examination of the diverse outcomes—and strategies for assessing them—of university/public child welfare agency partnerships designed to prepare social work students for public child welfare practice. This informative book addresses outcomes of these specialized training efforts which were supported by federal Title IV-E and Title IV-B Section 426 funds. Special attention is paid to programs addressing diversity and cultural competence through staff development. The book follows the process of tracking the career paths of students in several states (large and small, rural and urban), as well as cross-state collaborations that include university, agency, consumer, and student partnerships. From the Editors: “Rising drug problems such as crack and cocaine addiction, along with co-occurring challenges such as poverty, domestic violence, and mental health issues, have helped to reinforce the need to have the most effective services delivered by the most well-prepared staff. Moreover, such challenges compel the most relevant, scientifically based approaches, requiring a closer connection of public child welfare systems to social work education programs and related academic disciplines. The articles featured in this book serve as progress markers for this re-professionalization initiative. They constitute snapshots of some of the current progress in workforce development, including social work based education, training, and capacity building in public child welfare. They also reflect social work/public child welfare partnerships and the lessons that are being learned when the research, educational, and service resources of schools of social work are harnessed to build a better trained work force that can provide improved services.” In this informative book, you'll find a national overview of historical efforts to promote professional social work practice in child welfare, as well as examinations of: special challenges presented by privatized systems curricula and agencies training opportunities that grow from research partnerships the importance and impact of racial and ethnic diversity for future social workers the cultural competency needs of BSW and MSW students the differing cultural perspectives of universities and agencies—which must be bridged to create successful partnerships the benefits of these partnerships in terms of outcomes for students, clients, agencies, and social work education programs