Contact: DSHS: Thomas Shapley; (360) 902-7892, thomas.shapley@dshs.wa.gov
Contact: University of Washington: Molly McElroy; (206) 543-2580, mollywmc@uw.edu

May 10, 2012
DSHS Children's Administration, University of Washington and Eastern Washington University join forces to form child welfare professional development partnership

Seattle — The Department of Social and Health Services, University of Washington and Eastern Washington University have joined forces to form the Washington State Alliance for Child Welfare Excellence to provide a comprehensive training and professional development system for the state's child welfare workforce.

"Our intent is to use the combined expertise of all the partners to design a comprehensive training and professional development system that is seamless as social workers move from school to practice," said Denise Revels Robinson, Children's Administration Assistant Secretary. "Ultimately this will help us to better serve the children and families involved with public child welfare."

"Now, more than ever, the people of our state need a social welfare workforce that is fully equipped to guide our children and families through the challenges of life in the 21st century," said UW President Michael K. Young. "This partnership is an opportunity to leverage UW research and education expertise to improve our communities and enhance social wellbeing in our state."

"The Alliance is a breakthrough collaboration," says UW School of Social Work Dean Eddie Uehara. "It brings together the resources of three great campuses with the state's Children's Administration and Partners for Our Children, an innovative public-private-university partnership charged with measuring the impact we make in training social work professionals and delivering services to vulnerable families."

The training and professional development will be delivered through a mix of online sessions, webinars, and in-person training. With the participation of Eastern Washington University in the partnership, this will expand the Department's training infrastructure for social workers, and create training opportunities in Eastern Washington. More training delivered closer to regional and local Children's Administration offices will increase training opportunities for social workers and front line supervisors, managers, administrators, foster, adoptive and relative caregivers, and other key community partners involved with the foster care system. Currently social workers attend training sessions held only in Seattle.

The Alliance is made up of DSHS Children's Administration; UW School of Social Work; UW Tacoma Social Work Program; Partners for Our Children; and Eastern Washington University, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences and Social Work, School of Social Work.

Today Alliance members signed a Memorandum of Understanding to guide the activities of the training and professional development program; DSHS executed a 10-year master agreement with the University of Washington in December 2011 to create the training and professional development system.

The purpose of the training and professional development system is to create an integrated and comprehensive child welfare social work education, training, and research and evaluation system for the continuous improvement of services to children and families served by the child welfare system. The new system will build on the strengths and expertise of both universities and Children's Administration, providing greater training capacity statewide and at the local level.

The enhanced training and professional development system is slated to be in place by July 2012. Currently Alliance staff are working with Children's Administration teams in each of three regions in the state to research, plan and implement the transition to the new, enhanced training and professional development system. Early implementation will focus on supervisor and new social worker training. The remaining components of the system will follow, including foster parent training.

The University of Washington School of Social Work will be the lead partner under contract with the Department to collaborate with the universities. Partners for Our Children, affiliated with the UW School of Social Work, will evaluate the training and help guide curriculum development based on current research of best practice.

Washington will now join the majority of child welfare systems in the country that have a professional development program in partnership with the state schools of social work higher education system. However, the research component of the Alliance with Partners for Our Children makes Washington's professional development system unique.

The training and professional development system will provide an improved framework for Children's Administration to claim federal Title IV-E training funding. With the partnership now in place, and the implementation of the training and professional development system underway, Children's Administration will work with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to identify how to maximize federal funding for social work training and professional development.

Children's Administration provides services to approximately 9,500 children in any given month, serving approximately 7,800 families. About 800 – 1,000 of those children receive services while living at home, and the rest receive services while in foster care.

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