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Evaluation and Research
Evaluation and research are integral to CalSWEC's projects and activities. Research staff promote and engage in evaluation and research throughout the process of program and curriculum development.
- CalSWEC Data Sets (on the career interests of MSW students in California, the retention of Title IV-E graduates in public child welfare, and the California public child welfare workforce)
Research specialists Dr. Sherrill Clark and Dr. Susan Jacquet conduct evaluation and research for CalSWEC and in collaboration with the Title IV-E Child Welfare Training Project participating schools and the RTA Coordination Project staff. Their work involves promising practices that advance the development and enhancement of competencies in child welfare services and the retention of public child welfare workers.
Additionally, through its Research & Development Committee, CalSWEC funds projects exploring promising practices that advance the development of competencies in child welfare services and the retention of public child welfare workers.
CalSWEC’s evaluation and research group also provides opportunities for MSW and doctoral students, who contribute significantly to research activities.
Title IV-E Child Welfare Training Project
- Educational Curriculum Evaluation: CalSWEC evaluates the Title IV-E program curriculum on a continuing basis with the following three components.
- Competency Review and Revision: a periodic process to insure that CalSWEC social work competencies reflect current social work practice and the California child welfare curriculum principles.
- Curriculum Snapshot: a standardized documentation submitted every two years by each of the participating schools, containing detailed information about the coverage of the competencies, classroom and field placement learning, university-agency partnerships, any gaps in the curriculum, and resources needed to fill the gaps.
- Graduate Student Surveys: an outgrowth of the student focus groups, intended to gain information from graduating MSWs about how well they feel the curriculum prepared them for child welfare practice.
- Outcome Evaluation Research: CalSWEC conducts the following three ongoing evaluations studies to assess outcomes in terms of learning and employment.
- Time One-Time Two Student Surveys: Conducted with all entering and exiting MSWs in the participating CalSWEC schools from 1991 to 2003; data collection has been completed, and a monograph is being developed.
- Retention Study: Begun in 1996, an ongoing study of CalSWEC Title IV-E MSWs who have completed their payback obligation in public child welfare to assess the factors that contribute to the retention of child welfare workers. Data collected through 2004 will be used to develop a monograph.
- Workforce Study: Conducted every three years to survey the market for professional social workers in California public child welfare agencies. The 2004 California Public Child Welfare Workforce Study (April 2005) is now available for downloading.
- Graphic presentation of CalSWEC Title IV-E Students and Graduates from 1993 to June 2006
Regional Training Academy Coordination Project
- In collaboration with RTA Coordination staff, CalSWEC research specialists conduct evaluation and research involving promising practices that advance the development and enhancement of competencies in child welfare services and the retention of public child welfare workers.
- A national leader in the evaluation of human services training, CalSWEC has developed the Framework for Training Evaluation, a common approach to evaluation that can be used to evaluate child welfare training across the state.
- The RTA Coordination Project annually sponsors the National Human Services Training Evaluation Symposium, a unique forum for training evaluators from around the country to present and discuss training evaluation issues. In 2003 CalSWEC received a Special Recognition Award from the National Staff Development and Training Association for this symposium.
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