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A major approach to both reducing turnover and re-professionalizing the child welfare workforce has been Title IV-E university-agency collaborations. This article presents findings from one such collaboration, which provided continuing education training for child welfare workers that focused on best practices and client outcomes from an ethical decision-making perspective. The goal of the trainings was to enhance the level of professionalism among workers by introducing or reinforcing concepts of ethical practice. Findings indicate that the trainings were effective for participants.
Over the years, child welfare administrators have utilized several methods to professionalize staff, and increase retention. As a result, child welfare agencies have employed pay increases, organizational restructuring, reduced caseloads, and specialization of services to reduce caseworker turnover, increase employee retention, and improve service outcomes provided to children and families. Furthermore, child welfare systems in many states underwent a phase of deprofessionalization during the 1970s (McGuire, Howes, Murphy-Nugen, & George, 2011; Zlotnik, 2003). Turnover and reduced professionalism can negatively impact services to clients. A major approach to both reducing turnover and re-professionalizing the child welfare workforce has been Title IV-E university-agency collaborations. These collaborations provide information to students, infuse child welfare into the university curriculum, and train selected social work students during final field placements who become agency employees upon graduation. Research findings support the assertion that Title IV-E collaborations have been successful in improving retention and reducing vacancies within child welfare agencies by increasing the number of professional social workers in the field ( Jones, 2002; Rosenthal & Waters, 2006).
In addition, these collaborations have recently been called upon to provide continuing education for employees and other agency stakeholders. The goal of these continuing education trainings is to assist in the agency efforts to professionalize the child welfare workforce, thereby increasing knowledge and skills, employee retention, and outcomes for children and families. Professionalizing employees is considered vital to increase their effectiveness and the quality of services they provide (Leighninger, 2002; Zlotnik, Strand, & Anderson, 2009).
The majority of continuing education trainings have consisted of general and specific practice-related topics deemed significant to improve the skills, effectiveness, and decision-making of caseworkers and supervisors. General and specific training topics have included, but are not limited to, assessment, case management, permanency, substance abuse, violence within the...
