Social work faculty to research child abuse, neglect, best ways to improve child welfare training

CHAPEL HILL -- Four faculty members at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Social Work have received more than $2.5 million in federal grants for research projects in child welfare training, as well as child abuse and neglect.

The Administration for Children and Families, or ACF, awarded the grants to Drs. Nancy Dickinson, Shenyang Guo, Gary Nelson and Evelyn Williams. The ACF is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Dickinson, director of the school’s Jordan Institute for Families, was awarded $1 million over five years for a project addressing child welfare work force quality. Goals are to improve recruitment and retention of child welfare staff by training supervisors, managers and administrators in 17 N.C. counties. These results will be compared with 17 counties not receiving this training.

Guo’s two-year, $205,000 grant will fund a secondary analysis of data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being, a national survey dealing with child abuse and neglect. Guo will develop, test and apply innovative methods of analysis with the help of three doctoral students who will receive fellowships funded by the grant.

Nelson’s five-year, $1 million grant will be used to develop an effective child welfare practice method for rural communities. Successful practices from research literature and the field will be identified and used in creation of the model. A collaborative effort with 14 rural counties statewide will aid in the formation of the model. The project aims to produce several outcomes including a multi-module curriculum and a guide for helping states develop rural child welfare outreach strategies.

Williams received $360,000 for five years to fund an expansion of the N.C. Child Welfare Education Collaborative, a program seeking to increase the number of professionally trained staff in the state’s child welfare system. The collaborative already involves six universities statewide, and this grant will allow for the expansion to Western Carolina University and 11 previously unaffiliated counties in western North Carolina.

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UNC School of Social Work contact: Krystie Grubb, (919) 962-6540 or kgrubb@email.unc.edu