Child Welfare Workforce Development and Workplace Enhancement Institute: Knowledge Development and Application: Meeting Report

Child Welfare Workforce Development and Workplace Enhancement Institute : Knowledge Development and Application : Meeting Report
Year Published: 2006

https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/wf-institute/

On October 24-26, 2005, the Children's Bureau (CB) sponsored a Workforce Institute at the Hilton Crystal City Hotel in Arlington, VA, with approximately 250 invited participants. The Institute had several purposes: 1) to highlight productive/action-planning strategies for recruiting and retaining a stable and skilled workforce; 2) to share best practices; 3) to develop innovative solutions to common challenges, and 4) to build a shared knowledge base. Much of the impetus for the Institute came from a cluster of CB's discretionary grants on child welfare staff recruitment and retention as well as the findings of recent workforce-related studies conducted by national child-serving organizations and associations. Both indicating a need to highlight successes and challenges is hiring and retaining a qualified workforce. Institute participants included public and private non-profit child welfare agency representatives; state and local agency directors and administrators; university faculty members, researchers and educators; representatives of national organizations, human resources professionals; CB grantees, and CB training and technical assistance (T&TA) network representatives. The synthesis groups provided an opportunity for attendees to think critically about workforce-related issues, to discuss possible solutions to workforce challenges and to make recommendations to the field. The synthesis groups' recommendations were used to produce this report. (Author abstract, modified)