The Kent School of Social Work, at the University of Louisville, has had a long history of working in the area of child welfare training with State and federal agencies.

The Early Years: 1985-1992

In the early 1980s, due to a loss of federal Social Services Block grant funds, child welfare training staff in Kentucky was disbanded. For several years thereafter, statewide training was fragmented and sporadic. After an increase in physical and sexual abuse, and some high profile media cases, the Department for Social Service's programs underwent a thorough review. As a result of the work of the Governor's Protective Services Advisory Committee under Gov Martha Layne Collins and chaired by Lt Gov Steven Brashear, the necessity for consistent quality child welfare training was affirmed and the training arm was eventually reinstated. At this time, the Department turned to the state Universities to aid in four primary ways: 1) to help in the development and execution of child welfare training curricula, 2) to help bring into the State- Federal monies to cover the cost of training child welfare workers (Title IV-E training dollars can only be given to Universities), 3) to serve as training sites and improve overall logistics for the delivery of training; and 4) to add a research component to the training enterprise. In the late 80's, Eastern Kentucky University received the initial contract to serve as the primary hub of child welfare/training. In turn, EKU worked on the development of training curricula and then enlisted the other state Universities to form a Consortium to aid in the delivery of training for state child welfare workers. Today 8 Universities (EKU, WKU, NKU, Morehead, Murray, Kentucky State, UK and U of L) serve in this role. Finally, EKU again turned to Rod Barber to conduct a training needs assessment which was the beginning of the research arm of the training consortium. During the same period, Dana Christensen was brought in to train on issues of child sexual abuse and treating juvenile sex offenders. He also served as a consultant on difficult child welfare cases.

In 1992, Dr. Barber secured the Child Welfare Training Assessment (CWTA) contract from EKU to evaluate child welfare training. The first project was to conduct an evaluation of a newly developed "Working with Substance Abusing Families" training that was funded by a grant from the U.S. DHHS, Administration on Children and Families, Children's Bureau. Dr. Anita Barbee was hired to conduct that evaluation and in 1993 was hired full-time to head up the Child Welfare Training Assessment Project. In 1993, Dr. Barbee and Dr. Barber developed pre-post tests for four (4) trainings to assess for gains in knowledge and skills. In addition, they developed an agency feedback mechanism for using the results of the evaluation to inform future trainings. In 1994, Dr. Pam Yankeelov was hired to expand the evaluation program to assess transfer of training to the field by monitoring job performance in conducting assessments and case plans. In 1995, ongoing evaluation found that while classroom learning was effective, worker success in the field depended also on careful mentoring and support by managers, supervisors and co-workers. Transfer of learning to daily casework practice was also highly correlated with strong system supports such as lower caseloads. The results of these evaluations influenced the development of pre-employment education and training reinforcement programs.
During this same period, the Marriage and Family Therapy Program was incorporated into the Kent School of Social Work. Dana Christensen continued to work with the State on assessment and treatment issues. In due time, he was also enlisted to help the State develop a child welfare practice model that would incorporate the best of strengths based, child focused and family centered principles. Locally, Dr. Christensen worked collaboratively with the Community Partnerships for Protecting Children Project at the Ujima Neighborhood Place funded by the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation to prevent child abuse and neglect. This project was one of the seminal pilots of the neighborhood based initiatives and laid an important foundation for community based work in child welfare throughout the State as well as a refinement of solution-focused casework. Dr. Christensen worked closely with Bonnie Hommrich (a Kent School graduate) who later became Deputy Commissioner and now is the special advisor to Secretary Miller on Child Welfare issues. Dr. Barber's involvement also expanded to include the Community Collaboration for Children project targeted at prevention.

When Patton became Governor, he appointed Viola Miller to the role of Secretary of the Cabinet for Families and Children. She had been a speech therapist and educator. She was the director of Continuing Education at Murray State University before coming to the Cabinet. Her previous experience in higher education and commitment to the University-Cabinet collaboration has strengthened our role in the State. Dr. Christensen's Solution Based Casework model was adopted as the State's child welfare practice model and was incorporated into the Statewide information system (TWIST). Training assessment was continued and expanded to include the development and evaluation of several innovative training methods and professionalization measures (the field training specialist training reinforcement model, a test of the virtual office concept for front line workers, the PCWCP program, Human Services Leadership Institute, Everyone A Leader, among others). Also, evaluation of training was expanded to include training delivered to Family Support workers and Child Support workers. In the meantime, in 1999 Dr. Barber became the Principle Investigator on the Welfare Reform Study. In 2000, Dr. Mavin Martin and others received a Children's Bureau 426 Child Welfare Training grant to develop, deliver and evaluate Supervisory Training on Solution Based Casework. Because of the expansion of our role in the Cabinet, many other faculty at the Kent School became involved in these and related Cabinet projects (for example through our Research Sequence and our doctoral program) including Ruth Huber, Linda Bledsoe, Mavin Martin, Ramona Stone, Tangerine Holt, Anna Faul, Andy Frey, Riaan Van Zyl, and Bibhuti Sar. All of this work has helped our faculty and staff influence policy, information systems, training curricula, training delivery methods, mechanisms for transferring training to the field and practice. It has also helped us to join with child welfare workers and social workers in delivering the best service possible to children and families in our Commonwealth. Kent School has gained through additional resources (2.6 million dollars a year in extramural funding), staff (13), faculty (6) and a real world context to conduct research on training, practice and outcomes.

The Cabinet has committed itself to professionalization of child welfare practice in 3 ways: 1) supporting the education of BSW students and encouraging them to work in child welfare by giving them stipends and a job after graduation if they entered the PCWCP program (Public Child Welfare Certification Program)- a collaboration between ten accredited BSW programs in the State to deliver two child welfare electives to their students and a highly focused practicum in a local public child welfare office. 2) supporting the education of their workforce by giving stipends and time off for the pursuit of an MSW degree 3) Seeking accreditation from a National Accrediting body (which requires supervisors to have Masters degrees). In the 2002-2003 year, the training of new and existing employees for the job will be elevated to the graduate course level by partnering with the University of Louisville and the University of Kentucky. This will further professionalize our workforce by giving workers the opportunity to engage graduate level work so that they will eventually get the Masters degree. Worker skills will be enhanced in the important areas of ethics, critical thinking, problem solving, decision-making, assessment and intervention. Current training has not been able to impart all of those skills. The Cabinet believes education can. This way of delivering professional development will also enhance the learning process by requiring employees to read, write about the material they are learning, and assess competence through more frequent testing.

In 1999 Dr. Barbee and Dr. Yankeelov conducted a feasibility study of Virginia's training system. In 2000 Dr. Barbee assessed Oklahoma's on training evaluation needs and facilitated a new relationship with the University of Oklahoma, School of Social Work to develop and execute a training evaluation plan. In 2001, Dr. Barbee worked with the Washington, D.C. Office to assess training evaluation needs. Also, in 2002, Dr. Barbee and Dr. Cunningham have been working with California on test development.