Most states and counties provide some child welfare services directly and provide others through contracts with private agencies, where caseworkers provide residential treatment and family support services as well as reunification and adoption services. The role and level of assistance that private child welfare agencies provide varies by state, though in Illinois for example, approximately 80 percent of child welfare services is reported to be provided through the private sector. Although public and private child welfare agencies face different financial constraints and use different personnel guidelines, national survey data confirm that both state and private child welfare agencies are experiencing similar challenges recruiting and retaining qualified caseworkers. For instance, turnover of child welfare staff—which affects both recruitment and retention efforts—has been estimated at between 30 percent and 40 percent annually nationwide, with the average tenure for child welfare workers being less than 2 years. Evidence from a national child welfare workforce study indicates that fewer than 15 percent of child welfare agencies require caseworkers to hold either bachelors or masters degrees in social work, despite several studies finding that Bachelor’s of Social Work (BSW) and Master’s of Social Work (MSW) degrees correlate with higher job performance and lower turnover rates among caseworkers. Further evidence suggests that the majority of credentialed social workers are not employed in child or family service professions; instead, they choose professions in mental health, substance abuse prevention, rehabilitation, and gerontology. Nevertheless, child welfare caseworkers, assisted by their supervisors, are at the core of the child welfare system, investigating reports of abuse and neglect; coordinating substance abuse, mental health, or supplemental services to keep families intact and prevent the need for foster care; and arranging permanent or adoptive placements when children must be removed from their homes. In some agencies, caseworkers perform multiple functions from intake to placement on any given case; in others, they are specialized in areas such as investigations, reunification/family preservation, and adoptions. The primary role of supervisors is to help caseworkers perform these functions, thereby meeting the needs of families and carrying out the agency’s mission. Some functions of the child welfare supervisor include assigning cases, monitoring caseworkers’ progress in achieving desired outcomes, providing feedback to caseworkers in order to help develop their skills, supporting the emotional needs of caseworkers, analyzing and addressing problems, and making decisions about cases. In addition, given the challenges agencies face in recruiting and retaining child welfare workers, some supervisors provide direct assistance to caseworkers by taking on some of their cases. The federal government’s primary connection to the child welfare workforce has been through its funding of child welfare training programs as they relate to the provision of child welfare services. ACF at HHS is responsible for the administration and oversight of the approximately $7 billion in federal funding allocated to states for child welfare services. As part of this allocation, ACF provides matching funds for the training and development of child welfare caseworkers through Title IV-E of the Social Security Act. Title IV-E authorizes partial federal reimbursement— 75 percent—of states’ training funds to implement training programs for current child welfare staff and to enhance the child welfare curriculum of undergraduate and graduate social work programs to better educate and prepare potential caseworkers. This funding may also be used for curriculum development, materials and books, support for current workers to obtain a social work degree, and incentives to induce entry to the child welfare field. During fiscal year 2001, 49 states received $276 million in Title IV-E training reimbursements. These reimbursements ranged from a low of approximately $1,400 in Wyoming to a high of more than $59 million in California, with the median reimbursement approximating $3.1 million. In addition, ACF’s Children’s Bureau manages six discretionary grant programs through which it funds various activities related to improvements in the child welfare system. Each of these programs receives a separate annual appropriation from the Congress. One of these programs—the Child Welfare Training Program, authorized by Section 426 of Title IV of the Social Security Act—awards grants to public and private nonprofit institutions of higher learning to develop and improve the education, training, and resources available for child welfare service providers. This is the only program of the six with a specific emphasis on staff training; however, in fiscal year 2002, it received the second smallest share—9 percent—of the Children’s Bureau’s total discretionary funds (see fig. 1). In 2000, ACF began a new federal review system to monitor states’ compliance with federal child welfare laws. Under this system, ACF conducts CFSRs, assessing states’ performance in achieving the goals of safety, permanency, and child and family well-being—three goals emphasized in ASFA. The CFSR process involves a state self-assessment and an on-site review by a joint team of federal and state officials to assess states’ performance on assessment measures such as timely investigations of maltreatment and caseworker visits with families. States that have not met the standards are required to develop a program improvement plan (PIP) and can face the withholding of federal funds should they fail to develop a plan or fail to take the specified corrective actions. As of December 1, 2002, ACF had completed and documented its reviews for 27 states. In addition to these reviews, ACF provides assistance to states via its 10 resource centers, all of which have different areas of expertise, such as organizational improvement, legal and judicial guidance, and child welfare information technology. The primary goal of these centers is to help states implement federal legislation intended to ensure the safety, well-being, and permanency of children who enter the child welfare system, to support statutorily mandated programs, and to provide services to discretionary grant recipients. These centers conduct needs assessments, sponsor national conference calls with states, collaborate with other resource centers and agencies, and provide on-site technical assistance and training to states. States may request specific assistance from the centers; however, ACF sets the centers’ areas of focus and priorities, and no one center focuses specifically on recruitment and retention issues at this time. Figure 2 shows the major channels through which federal dollars can be used for staff development. Members of the current and previous Congress have introduced proposals to expand federal funding to combat the recruitment and retention challenges that child welfare agencies face. As of March 26, 2003, the Congress was considering H.R. 14 and S. 342, each named the “Keeping Children and Families Safe Act of 2003,” which contain provisions to improve the training of supervisory and nonsupervisory workers; improve public education relating to the role and responsibilities of the child protective system; and provide procedures for improving the training, retention, and supervision of caseworkers. The Congress is also currently considering S. 409 and H.R. 734, bills that would provide federal loan forgiveness to social workers who work for child protective agencies and have obtained their bachelor’s or master’s degrees in social work. As a tool to increase retention, both of these bills tie education loan repayment to tenure, such that the longer the caseworker remains with the agency, the greater the share of the loan that is repaid. These bills would apply to caseworkers in public and private child welfare agencies operating under contract with the state. Child welfare agencies face a number of challenges recruiting and retaining workers and supervisors. Public and private agency officials in all four of the states we visited struggled to provide salaries competitive with those in comparable fields, such as teaching. According to these officials, they lose both current workers and potential hires to these fields, which pay higher wages and offer safer and more predictable work environments. National salary data, though somewhat broad in how it defines certain occupations, confirm that child and family caseworkers earn less than educators. Specifically, one county official in Texas said that teachers now earn starting salaries of about $37,000 while entry-level caseworkers earn about $28,000 annually, a difference of about 32 percent. Caseworkers we interviewed in each state also cited administrative burdens, such as increased paperwork requirements for each child in a case; a lack of supervisory support; and insufficient time to participate in training as issues impacting both their ability to work effectively and their decision to stay in the child welfare profession. These issues were mentioned by both public and private agency staff in all four states, where some caseworkers handled double the number of cases recommended by independent child welfare organizations. Former child welfare workers also identified these issues in exit interview documents we reviewed. In addition to retirement and other personal reasons staff chose to leave their positions, low salaries and high caseloads were among the factors affecting child welfare workers’ decisions to sever their employment. Public and private agencies we visited in all four states struggled to provide salaries competitive with those in comparable occupations and encountered difficulty retaining staff due to salary gaps within the profession of child welfare. According to our analysis of 585 exit interviews completed by staff who severed their employment, 81 cited low pay as one of their reasons for leaving. In addition, according to agency officials in all four states, they consistently lose both current workers and potential hires to higher-paying professions, such as teaching. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ national wages survey reports that elementary and middle school teachers earn, on average, about $42,000 annually while social workers earn about $33,000. Furthermore, one California private agency reported that foster care caseworkers with MSWs who worked in group residential care facilities, which provide structured living arrangements and treatment services for children with complex needs, earned from $5,000 to $30,000 less than school counselors, nurses, and medical and public health social workers. Other states also report significant wage disparities within the child welfare profession. One study in South Carolina found that salaries for public agency caseworkers were almost double those of direct care workers in private agency residential programs. Additionally, according to labor union representatives in Illinois, public agency caseworkers there earn considerably more than staff in private child welfare agencies, and union officials at the national level attribute this wage gap to their lobbying efforts.