5^th Annual Title IV-E Child Welfare Roundtable

Southwest Texas State University's Social Work Center for Children and Families hosted the fifth annual Child Welfare Roundtable on June 14-15, 2001 at the Aquarena Springs Conference Center in San Marcos. The event was designed to build a strong collaborative network for universities and agencies that prepare personnel to work with children and families. Representatives from twenty-four child welfare agencies, twenty universities, and seven states attended.

Vice President for Academic Affairs Robert D. Gratz welcomed the group to campus and Dean of the College of Health Professions Rumaldo Z. Juarez introduced the keynote speaker, the Honorable Scott McCown. Judge McCown presides over half of Travis County's Child Protective Services docket and serves on the Texas Supreme Court Task Force of Foster Care. He is well-known for his Petition in Behalf of the Forsaken Children of Texas, urging an increase of funding to fight child abuse.

Following Judge McCown's presentation, university and agency personnel worked together in task groups on current issues about preparing students to work in public child welfare. Karen Brown and Nancy Chavkin, Co-Directors of the Center for Children and Families, and Elizabeth Kromrei, Assistant Director of Operations for Texas Child Protective Services, were the facilitators for this meeting of more than one hundred professionals working together to improve training for child welfare personnel. They look forward to next year's meeting which has already been scheduled for June 13-14, 2002. For more information, please contact the Center at 512-245-1784.

Key Points From Focus Group Reports

Federal/State Contract Issues

Sarah Webster committed to provide more guidance regarding IV-E issues in the future. She is committed to negotiating the contracts to meet the needs of the university. Key words were reasonable, allowable, allocable, and necessary. This group stated that contracts in state agencies are being closely scrutinized, and auditors want to know specifics.

There is a need for coordination within and externally to TDPRS. The goals of this group are : 1) Make an effort to see that universities get consistent answers. 2) Strengthen contract terms. 3) Increase monitoring. 4) Provide written feedback.

Models Of Curriculum Delivery

This group looked at current processes in terms of curriculum processes and development. The group looked at problems with the agency and the universities. Most schools generally use infusion of child welfare content re: practice/processes in each class.

Issues discussed: 1) Should specific courses be offered in child welfare or infusion throughout the various courses be the way to go. 2) What is the best way to offer information about CPS? 3) Concerns about the issues of cultural diversity. Is what we're teaching both practical and effective. How can we meet the different needs around the state? 4) Frustrations by students of getting into the system. How well do we prepare students at the BSW and MSW level to face challenges of the job. 5) Concerns about repetition of information of students going through the BSD classes, and how do we deal with it? 6) Whatever is done to support IV-E students as new employees needs to be done to support non-IV-E new employees.

Recommendations included:

1) Try to identify/develop mentoring services for IV-E students as well as short-term transition from student to employee. Mentoring needs to last for 6 months to a year. Need to have good supervision within the first year.

2) Infusion of curriculum to insure development of leaders within CPS. We need to meet the needs of all levels of staff and administration.

3) Make sure we have flexibility re: field placements and meet needs of staff regarding placement.

4) Hire special faculty to support field units ( supervise MSW/BSW student during placement).

5) Develop clear guidelines for learning objectives during field placement. Practice and activities that clearly meet the needs of CPS as well as the university.

6) Be clear with students that social work is broader than counseling.

7) Regarding cultural sensitivity- have classes that provide appropriate, practical applications

8) Have students learn more about field before BSD- help them be prepared for the nature of the job.

9) Maintain good partnership with the agency. Agency needs to be more active in the process of professionializing staff. This means that the agency needs to bring in more MSW/BSW staff.

10) State funds need to be looked at re: mentoring effort with the university. If staff not available, we need to look at federal funds for this purpose.

11) We need to study the issue of the need for a standardized pre-test from the MSW program and entering CPS . This would help all regions across the state to get good people in CPS with the same core knowledge. Suggestions for implementing consistency were : a) share syllabi across state b) continued effort to improve, strengthen programs to help MSW students with stress. Look at own family background and see how it impacts practice, look at systems problems. Help them understand a bureaucracy and how to appropriately advocate for themselves.

Selection Of Stipend Recipients/Matching The Graduate

This group basically looked at three areas : Who's involved in the decision-making, what's the process, and what are the criteria? This group compiled the information into a matrix hand-out that will be faxed after the notes are e-mailed.

The major concerns/problems/issues were:

• Giving priority to agency need rather than employee interest may lead to resignation
• Need of agency and supply of graduates may not match
• Agency cannot give priority to stipend graduate in hiring
• Hire dates and verification of completion of degree may not coincide
• Issues of gatekeeping

Emerging Needs In Practice

We need a link between the agency and the university. We need to be effective as educators to meet the needs of students. We need to focus on professionalism as the student transitions from the student role to an employee role. This needs to include information on boundaries and confidentiality in a rural setting., cultural diversity from the perspective of the needs of the clients, changing demographics, recruitment of students, substance abuse, (recognizing use and appropriate responses), worker safety, resource linkage and referral, children's mental health issues (medication and diagnosis), and assessments. Sexuality, sexual abuse, gay/lesbian couples and issues, homophobia. We need to focus on technology, and since students seem to be more technologically competent, teach them to teach tenured workers.

For the future: Curriculum infusion, curriculum development, the role of the advisory committees, increased agency and university collaboration. Lastly, the need for continuing education opportunities.