INSTITUTE INSIGHTS MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR
Greetings to our child welfare community! On behalf of the Institute, I’m excited that we will share the upcoming activities at our new GROW Center. Our Dr. Jessica Pryce, director affiliate network and Institute team have been actively engaged with DCF, the CBC agencies, and the Florida Legislature as we work to bring to life the vision outlined in Senate Bill 1326. As the end of the year approaches, we look forward to continuing our work with statewide partners on a comprehensive array of professional development opportunities that will prioritize well-being and career pathways. Read our Implementation Plan for details. In January, we will launch our Alliance for Workforce Enhancement initiative (AWE). Two pilot sites will work with us for three years on organizational well-being, leadership development and tailored capacity building to meet the unique needs of their workforce. Our two pilot sites are the Department of Children and Families, Leon County Service Center and Partnership for Strong Families, Inc. in Gainesville. We will learn so much from partnering with a DCF Center, as well as with one of our community-based care lead agencies. We are committed to bring well-being support for each pilot site and build capacity to sustain the work once our partnership ends. Florida’s Legislative Session begins on January 11, 2022, and our Institute will be fully engaged and providing updates on all GROW Center initiatives. Please stay tuned throughout the next few weeks as we will be rolling out more and more exciting updates!
Preparing and supporting Florida’s child welfare workforce from CLASSROOM to CASE WORK to COMPETENT LEADERSHIP Transforming child welfare in Florida into a system that prioritizes thriving children and families requires a thriving workforce. As announced this past spring, the Institute is mandated by Senate Bill 1326 to create a dynamic through-line from classroom to casework to competent leadership. Utilizing findings from the Florida Study of Professionals for Safe Families (2015-2020) as the foundation, the Institute developed the GROW Center, the heart of the Institute’s efforts to stabilize and sustain the professional workforce.
students, recently trained personnel, and middle and upper management positions working in child welfare agencies to enhance learning and build capacity towards meaningful and systemic change within the statewide child welfare workforce.
The Institute’s GROW Center will house three initiatives that address each of the components mandated by statute: Academic Innovation, ALIGN (Advance, Learn, Innovate, Grow, Network), and the Alliance for Workforce Enhancement (AWE). It is the umbrella under which all the Institute’s professional advancement offerings will be created, and all management and administrative tasks, curriculum development, and coordination of activities will be conducted. The goal is to create a continuum of learning opportunities and ongoing support for college
ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Throught the next few weeks, the Institute will roll out additional information about the GROW Center. We will share our plans for the future and details about our efforts. Make sure to check our website and social media accounts to follow along @FLchildwelfare.
The GROW Center is the vision of dedicated and forward-thinking advocates at the state and legislative level, and the Institute is seeking additional voices from those who are interested in revolutionizing the child welfare workforce. Consider joining the GROW Center Advisory Committee. Applications will be available in early 2022, and if you are interested in being placed on a priority email list to directly receive additional information, please click here to enroll.
ALLIANCE FOR WORKFORCE ENHANCEMENT
The goal of the AWE Initiative is to enhance workforce well-being through specialized leadership development and adaptive technical assistance at the organizational level. Informed by implementation science and the National Child Welfare Workforce Institute’s (NCWWI) Workforce Development Framework, selected AWE organizations will participate in a three-year initiative, which includes a comprehensive assessment to determine organizational strengths and challenges, co-creation of a plan to address a challenge identified through assessment, guided implementation activities, project evaluation, and
To truly professionalize the welfare workforce, students in social work and other academic programs can benefit from being better prepared in knowledge and understanding of the complexities of working with child welfare-involved families. The initial focus of the GROW Center’s academic innovation agenda is the redesign of the BSW and MSW curricula led by the FSU College of Social Work in collaboration with other university affiliates. Over the next three years, the College will develop a robust curriculum to educate students more effectively. Child welfare will be infused intentionally as components of all courses through Problem-based/ Case-based Learning (PBL/CBL), a major and transformative re-direction of Florida university social work programs. This proposed teaching methodology is a focused effort to provide social work and other interdisciplinary students with enhanced real-life training that will better prepare them to engage with the demands of working with children and family in any social work arena, but specifically in child welfare. It also seeks to improve workforce sustainability through the preparation of resilient and informed social workers.
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NECIA LITTLE, CPM, OPERATIONS MANAGER, & BRITTANY LYONS, OPERATIONS PROGRAM ADMINISTRATOR—FLORIDA DCF
“We are so pleased to be selected as one of the pilot sites for the Alliance for Workforce Enhancement Initiative. Our team is looking forward to learning and growing and partnering with FSU in order to improve our capacity to create and maintain a well-supported and resilient workforce.”
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sustainability planning. These tailored growth opportunities are supported by well-being and resiliency activities and leadership development training. The Institute and our affiliates have been building AWE since Fall 2020 and have developed a robust program that integrates tangible resources for the workforce with experiential learning opportunities to promote internal capacity building within agencies. The first year of the AWE initiative focuses on establishing a well-being baseline, both for the organization as a whole as well as for individual workers. LEARN MORE HERE
STEPHEN PENNYPACKER, ESQ., PRESIDENT & CEO—PARTNERSHIP FOR STRONG FAMILIES
“Partnership for Strong Families is pleased to be selected as one of the pilot sites for the Alliance for Workforce Enhancement Initiative. Both our lead agency staff and contracted case management agencies are looking forward to learning, growing, and partnering with FSU to improve the quality of our work and the personal fulfillment we get from it.”
ALIGN
LEARN MORE
in their approach and feel supported throughout their learning pathway. The goal is for participants to become more confident in their work with families.
ALIGN is a learning community that offers holistic support for child welfare professionals and advancement opportunities throughout their career. Joining this community includes support through training and onboarding, opportunities for specialization through Advanced Certification courses (AdCert), as well as ongoing mentoring and coaching. The ALIGN community will offer myriad specialty areas for the child welfare professional to take courses, learn about relevant issues, and gain experience in problem solving to become more confident
The Advanced Certifications will facilitate the implementation of a cohesive and progressive path of professional development that meaningfully connects to their pre-service training. The program will provide to DCF a university-led, evidencebased, trauma-informed, engaging training that will increase workers’ preparation and self-efficacy to handle the complexity of their caseload. This ongoing program will engage child welfare workers and give them new knowledge, technical assistance, and support throughout their advancement up the career ladder. This will allow them to build expertise and specialize, ideally resulting in both improved worker job satisfaction and advanced and diverse competencies within the workforce.
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ACADEMIC INNOVATION
WEBSITE
LOGIC MODEL
THE PLAN
WATCH
To learn more about the GROW Center and the Academic Innovation, ALIGN, and AWE initiatives, visit our website, read our Implementation Plan and Logic Model, and watch interviews with Institute leadership and key partners. Click the links above!
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RESEARCH UPDATES RFP ANNOUNCEMENT
REPORT AVAILABLE Per Florida Statute 39.01304 (2) (2020), “the Office of the State Courts Administrator [OSCA] shall contract for an evaluation of the early childhood court programs to ensure the quality, accountability, and fidelity of the programs’ evidence-based treatment.” ZERO TO THREE (ZTT) contracted with the Institute to develop and execute an evaluation plan to address this statute. The Institute, in consultation with ZTT and OSCA’s Office of Court Improvement (OCI), determined that the priority was evaluating the effectiveness of therapeutic modalities related to parenting and the parent-child relationship.
the Institute conducted two distinct but related evaluation initiatives: 1) a mixed-methods evaluation of the effectiveness of therapeutic modalities, and 2) a qualitative exploration of the perspectives of ECC-involved caregivers and providers regarding the therapeutic services and benefits of Early Childhood Court. Click below to read the Final Report. An Executive Summary of the report will be available on the Institute website soon.
To address the evaluation priorities,
As the activities of the GROW Center are data-driven, the Institute aims to remain informed of emerging needs and solutions relevant to workforce resiliency. To begin these efforts, the Institute’s 2022-2023 Priority Research Awards will be dedicated to innovations in workforce resilience. A competitive request for proposals is now available for research proposals that can inform the GROW Center activities and intended outcomes. At least two awards will be given to projects that demonstrate clear linkages to GROW Center inputs, activities, or outcomes and potential for translation into policy or practice.
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STAFF WELCOME The Institute would like to welcome our new Program Director for Professional Development and leader of the GROW Center, Kristina Finch! An alumna of the FSU College of Education and a Miami native, Kristina completed her MS in Curriculum and Instruction in 2013 and has spent her career focused on enhancing education and training in the fields of secondary education, adult and workforce education, and state government. She most recently completed a Graduate Certificate Program in Instructional
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Design and eLearning from the University of Central Florida. Kristina comes to the Institute after serving four years as the Director of Professional Development for the Florida Department of Management Services. She was also a former program manager at Tallahassee Community College, leading education and training efforts over programs addressing adult education, migrant education, offender re-entry, and workforce needs.
FICW@FSU.EDU
Welcome, Kristina!
FICW.FSU.EDU
Kristina Finch, program director
@FSUChildWelfare