Visualizing a Complex Evaluation: A Tuition Stipend Program for Child Welfare Workers

The child welfare workface has long faced difficulties with recruiting and retaining employees with the knowledge and skills necessary to effectively manage the stress and complexities of the work. We hypothesize that a social work education will give child welfare workers the skills, tools, and self-efficacy needed to better serve their clients and to remain in their positions for a longer duration. Through a university-agency collaboration, child welfare employees were selected into a program where tuition costs for earning a Master in Social Work were covered in exchange for the students’ commitment to continue working in their agencies for three years after their education is complete. This presentation focuses on a collaborative effort between the University of Nebraska (UNO), the Grace Abbott School of Social Work (GASSW), Project Harmony, Nebraska Families Collaborative (NFC) and Support and Training for the Evaluation of Programs (STEPs) as Title IV-E and privately funded students begin a specifically constructed Child Welfare Master in Social Work Cohort. To evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of this tuition-stipend program, STEPs is working to conduct an in-depth, multi-year outcome evaluation. The results of this study could have important implications on future initiatives taken to increase the capacity of the child welfare system