Collaboration of a public child welfare agency and a school of social work: a clinical group supervision project.

The plight of public child welfare services in recent years has received growing attention in the literature. On the demand side, the cumulative effects of federal social policy shifts in the 1980s led to a greater number of families in poverty [Fuchs & Reklis 1992]; correspondingly, the number of children placed in out-of-home care has increased markedly [U.S. Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families 1989]. In many urban areas, the availability of crack-cocaine has exacerbated the effects of poverty and unemployment by rendering many young parents incapable of parenting. This, in turn, has placed an additional burden on extended family members (often grandparents) to care for dependent children. Not surprisingly, protective services complaints have also increased during this period [Daro & Mitchel 1990].On the supply side, the long-predicted effects of deprofessionalizing child welfare services have become painfully evident: early burnout and high turnover rates among staff members; multiple placements and longer stays in out-of-home care despite permanency planning efforts; children left in the custody of abusive or neglecting parents when they should have been removed; other children returned from out-of-home care prematurely and without adequate preparation and support; lack of a treatment capacity within child welfare agencies, resulting in cumbersome interagency processes that delay or even prevent timely treatment for traumatized children and their families; and growing antagonism and distrust between parents and child welfare workers.In Delaware County, Pennsylvania (population 550,000), public child welfare services are provided by a state-monitored/county-administered program. Delaware County Children and Youth Services (CYS) has two offices in the county and 81 line staff members. These offices directly provide a customary range of information and referral services, intake evaluations, protective in-home services, placement services, and family reunification services to a caseload of approximately 6,000 children from 4,500 families annually. In addition, CYS negotiates and monitors contracts with over 50 private agencies and individuals for residential and family foster care, family preservation services, psychological and medical evaluations, parent education, and staff training.As part of a larger effort to reprofessionalize its child welfare services, upgrade the clinical skills of its staff, and stabilize its work force, CYS entered into a contractual agreement with the Center for Social Work Education (CSWE) at Widener University. The agreement had two main components: (1) the use of federal (Title IV-E) funds to pay tuition for CYS staff members who were admitted to CSWE's Master of Social Work Program, and (2) the provision of clinical supervision for these staff-students by CSWE faculty, as part of the students' field placements.Since these students continued to work at the agency while completing their degrees, their "worksite field practica" were negotiated individually between CSWE's Director of Field Work and the social work training supervisor and unit supervisors at each site. One faculty member provided clinical group supervision every other week to six staff-students as part of their first-year field placement experience. Each student also received administrative supervision weekly from their supervisors on site. In their second-year field placement, each student will receive individual clinical supervision by CSWE in addition to the group supervision.THE STUDENTSThe six students were all women, ranging in age from the mid-twenties to the mid-fifties. The number of years of previous experience at CYS ranged from four to seven. Two of the students were already supervisors of intake units. In general, their individually negotiated field practica resulted in their providing direct services and/or treatment to children and families classified by CYS as needing either family preservation or family reunification services. …