Preparing and supporting Florida’s child welfare workforce from classroom to case work to competent leadership
Professionalizing the Child Welfare Workforce
To truly professionalize the child welfare workforce, students in social work and other academic programs should not only be better prepared both in the knowledge gained but also have a better understanding of the complexities of working with child welfare-involved families.
The redesign of the BSW and MSW curricula led by the FSU College of Social Work in collaboration other university affiliates is the initial focus of the GROW Center’s academic innovation agenda. 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).
Academic Innovation Will:
redesign the future of learning in social work education through innovative, experiential learning, and state-of-the-art virtual technologies.
successfully prepare and train students to address the complex and diverse needs of youth and families in everyday practice.
develop and implement innovative, promising, and tested teaching methodologies that facilitate active student engagement and reflection in the classroom.
facilitate the development of resilient, engaged, lifelong learners who are prepared to enter social work practice.
Problem-based/Case-based Learning
Problem-based/Case-based Learning (PBL/CBL) is an empirically proven approach to educating professionals working in highly complex systems of care, e.g., health care, law, business.
Moving to PBL/CBL pedagogy is a major and transformative re-direction of Florida university social work programs. The 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.
Partners
Partner collaborators will assist in the development of multidimensional content that will be used to create case studies. One of the key components of this teaching methodology, and a goal of Academic Innovation, is to build interprofessional collaborative opportunities for social work students to experience networking and real-world client problems from an interdisciplinary perspective. Our collaborative partners will assist and play a key role in developing cases that include professional components of law, medicine, child & family science, and public health.
Additionally, the FSU College of Motion Picture Arts and USF School of Social Work will help in the production of the case study video shorts that will be utilized across the curriculum.
Get Involved
For additional information about Academic Innovation and future professional development opportunities, please join our mailing list to stay informed.
AN INITIATIVE OF The GROW Center
The Vision of Academic Innovation
To provide students with the necessary skills to effectively navigate real-life practice challenges by transforming the classroom into an engaging and collaborative case-based learning environment that supports the development of advanced problem-solving skills, complex reasoning, ethical decision-making, and student-driven learning.
Implementation Plan
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