An often overlooked but major task of child welfare supervisors is administrative, which includes assessing worker and client needs, planning, tracking worker and client activity, ensuring compliance with business processes and information systems, managing work flow, and staffing. Supervisors in small offices may have multiple duties that also include facility and office management. The following resources address administrative aspects of supervision, including State and local examples.
Changing Hats While Managing Change: From Social Work Practice to Administration
Perlmutter & Crook (2nd ed.) (2004)
View Abstract
Aims to help practitioners determine whether they wish to shift their careers from direct practice to administrative practice and to help social workers who have moved up the ladder without administrative training to understand their new challenges.
Effectively Managing Human Service Organizations
Brody (3rd ed.) (2005)
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Describes techniques for program planning and administration in human service agencies. Topics include employee selection and motivation, resource development, strategic planning, problem-solving, supervisory roles, time management, staff compensation, and team building.
Managing for Outcomes: The Selection of Sets of Outcome Measures
Poertner, Moore, & McDonald
Administration in Social Work, 32(4), 2008
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Proposes criteria, using child welfare as an example, for evaluating a set of outcome measures that will yield an accurate picture of program performance.
The Role of Child Welfare Managers in Promoting Agency Performance Through Experimentation
McBeath, Briggs, & Aisenberg
Children and Youth Services Review, 31(1), 2009
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Introduces three models of managerial experimentation, each of which seeks to improve organizational performance through trial-and-error experimentation and continuous evaluation of staff activities and program outcomes.
Using Information Management to Support the Goals of Safety, Permanency and Well Being (PDF - 4,118 KB)
Institute for Child and Family, Edward S. Muskie School of Public Service
Instructs child welfare supervisors how to use Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information Systems (SACWIS) data to generate information critical to day-to-day casework supervision.
State and local examples
Child Welfare Practice and Data: Making the Connection
North Carolina Division of Social Services & The Family and Children's Resource Center
Children's Services Practice Notes, 14(2), 2009
Explores how using data can enhance child welfare practice.
Managing Out: The Community Practice Dimensions of Effective Agency Management
Austin (2004)
In Changing Welfare Services: Case Studies of Local Welfare Reform Programs
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Discusses managerial skills in leaders of promising programs and practices emerging from welfare reform implementation in the San Francisco Bay Area. It describes community practice dimensions of spanning organizational boundaries, major practice components of managing out, and assessment of interorganizational concepts relevant to the process of managing out.
Tools of the Trade: Preparation for Supervision. Participant's Guide (PDF - 1,450 KB)
Georgia Department of Human Resources (2007)
Presents information and exercises for modules that address making the transition to supervisor, including communicating, coaching, planning and managing unit work, building better relationships, using data, team building, and maximizing individual performance.
Training for NC's Child Welfare Supervisors
North Carolina Division of Social Services & The Family and Children's Resource Center
Training Matter, 11(2), 2010
Outlines current training resources and describes changes the North Carolina Division of Social Services is making to support supervisors as they seek to achieve the best possible outcomes for families and children.