Health-care providers are in a unique position to offer consistent support to vulnerable children and families through regular health-care visits and to promote healthy child development and positive parenting in order to reduce the risk of child abuse and neglect. As mandatory reporters, health-care providers are also required to report suspected child abuse and neglect. Health-care providers may also provide counseling to pregnant women considering adoption for their child. The following resources provide training curricula and materials to help health-care providers better understand the child welfare system and the overlapping issues affecting each system.
Community Tool Box
University of Kansas Work Group on Health Promotion and Community Development
Provides training on topics related to community health and development, including step-by-step instruction, examples, checklists, and "plan the work" toolkits.
Ensuring the Healthy Development of Infants in Foster Care: A Guide for Judges, Advocates and Child Welfare Professionals (PDF - 6,690 KB)
Dicker & Gordon (2004)
Describes how to ensure that children receive necessary services by integrating assessment into the permanency planning process.
Framing an Economic Evaluation: A Self-Study Course with Exercises and Case-Study Questions
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (HHS) (2003)
View Abstract
Explains to public health professionals the different forms of economic evaluations and offers strategies for framing an economic evaluation study.
Maternal and Child Health Thesaurus (PDF - 1,690 KB)
Pickett (2005)
Provides the maternal and child health (MCH) professional community with a standard vocabulary in MCH program development and management, including health services, research, training, and program administration.
MCH Navigator
Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Health Resources and Services Administration
Provides a learning portal linking individual to existing open-access training that is organized in areas consistent with nationally endorsed health and MCH leadership competencies.
The Role of Health Care Professionals in the Response to Child Victimization
Palusci (2003)
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Introduces the many roles of health-care professionals in the assessment, care, and treatment of child victimization. It concentrates on those professionals caring for the physical health of victims of child abuse and neglect.
The Training Needs Care of Primary Health Teams in Child Protection
Bannon (2003)
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Defines the roles and responsibilities of all health professionals in the overall process of ensuring that British children are protected from the threat of abuse or neglect.
Child Welfare Information Gateway encourages organizations to submit resources from their workforce or training efforts for inclusion in our library. Send information to library@childwelfare.gov.