101478: Challenges of Street-Level Child Welfare Reform and Technology Transfer

About the Course:

Team Decisionmaking (TDM) involves a meeting of community representatives, family members, and social workers who review every decision to remove children from their parents or change of placement, including reunification or adoption. Even when the leadership of child welfare organizations mandates the use of TDM, implementing TDM is very challenging. To understand these challenges, a research team visited five diverse communities and conducted 74 focus groups and interviews involving 180 administrators, caseworkers, community partners, supervisors, and TDM facilitators. This article reviews the findings of this TDM study through previous research on street-level bureaucracy and technology transfer. The results suggest successful TDM implementation requires attention to the discretion of street-level caseworkers and the organizational constraints they face.

Journal/Publisher:

Alliance for Children and Families/Families in Society

Publication Date:

2008/Vol.89,No. 4

Authors

David S. Crampton, PhD; Thomas M. Crea, PhD, LCSW; Anne Abramson-Madden, MSW; Charles L. Usher, PhD

About the Authors:

Assistant professor, Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve University

Assistant professor, Graduate School of Social Work, Boston College

Graduate student researcher, School of Social Welfare, University of California, Berkeley

Wallace H. Kuralt, Sr., professor of Public Welfare Policy and Administration, School of Social Work, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Recommended For:

This course is recommended for social workers, counselors, psychologists, and other human services and behavioral health professionals who seek knowledge about team decisionmaking (TDM). It is appropriate for participants with an introductory or intermediate level of knowledge about the topic.
COURSE SYLLABUS I. Implementing New Practices as Technology Transfer
II Team Decisionmaking III Study Design and Methodology IV Consistent Themes from the TDM Implementation Study V Discussion

Course Objectives:

1. Explore the impediments to the implementation of team decisionmaking and the steps that can be taken to ensure successful implementation.