Next Steps for the Children's Bureau

• CB is launching a Child Welfare Workforce Communities of Practice website as part of the Child Welfare Information Gateway.
• CB will continue to bring attention to the need for supporting efforts to strengthen the child welfare workforce by including workshops/sessions on workforce related issues during CB sponsored meetings and/or conferences when appropriate.
• CB will continue to provide information to the hurricane-affected States on how to rebuild the workforce.
• The CFSR T&TA Training Task group will include workforce training opportunities in its calendar of training activities.
• One of CB's Recruitment and Retention Grantees is collaborating with the National Resource Center for Organizational Improvement in planning a training symposium in 2006.
• CB will encourage the T&TA network and other partners to gather and synthesize action-oriented models and strategies for optimizing and stabilizing the workforce. These may include:
  • Recruitment and selection models and strategies
  • Training and organizational initiation-induction models and strategies
  • New practice models, strategies, and priorities
  • Career development and promotion models and strategies
  • Professional development models and strategies
  • Retention models and strategies
  • Organizational development models and strategies
  • Models to address lingering issues and needs
• CB will encourage the T&TA network and partners to synthesize current information on State, federal, and local workforce policy. Examples may include:
  • State workforce recruitment initiatives
  • State workforce development initiatives, including partnerships with social work education
  • State turnover-related initiatives (e.g., Delaware's program for hiring extra workers and deploying them when turnover occurs, thus preventing the multiple problems associated with unfilled vacancies)
  • Promising State policies
  • New CB/HHS initiatives

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