Gail B. Werrbach

Sharing the Baton, Not Passing It: Collaboration between Public and Private Child Welfare Agencies to Reunify Families

ABSTRACT Increasingly, public sector child welfare agencies are contracting with private agencies for the provision of specialized services to clients while maintaining oversight and case management responsibilities. At the same time, funders, both private and public, are demanding that service providers partner and collaborate with one another. In this article, we present results from a study of a unique partnership between two state child welfare agencies and a private child welfare agency aimed at reunifying families whose children have been removed and placed in foster care. Data was obtained from 41 key informants using a questionnaire and a structured interview. Findings support earlier studies of collaboration, and indicate the strengths of this partnership and factors that facilitated and hindered it. The results have implications for agencies that both contract for and provide a range of child welfare services as well as other interagency relationships.

Social Work Students’ Interest in Working with Persons with Serious Mental Illness

Educating and recruiting practitioners to work in community-based settings with persons with serious mental illness has become a national health issue, particularly in underserved rural areas. To inform curriculum development and recruitment efforts, the authors conducted a needs assessment. Graduate and undergraduate social work students in a rural New England state university were surveyed about their interest, perceived competence, and perceived training needs in working with persons with serious mental illness. The findings indicated that almost half of the students expressed an interest in working with this population. The extent and nature of previous work with this population and educational level were shown to be related to students’ responses, in areas including interest in work with persons with serious mental illness and the perceived ability to handle a psychiatric crisis. The findings suggest important implications for the social work curriculum, additional needs assessment, and recruitment a...

Collaborative Agency Training for Parent Employees and Professionals in a New Agency Addressing Children's Mental Health

This paper describes an 8-week training curriculum conducted jointly with parent employees and professionals in a uniquely constructed agency. The agency provides case management and wraparound services for children with serious emotional disabilities (SED). Parents of children with SED helped conceptualize the agency, and parent employees play important roles in management and daily operations. Several experiences in developing this rural agency are portrayed and employee views are explored. The greatest focus is on aspects of the collaborative seminar for training employees in implementing the family strengths-based system of care in childrens mental health. The curriculum is described, followed by lessons learned and implications for future parent–professional joint training.

Working with persons with serious mental illness: implication for social work recruitment and retention

Educating and recruiting practitioners to work in community-based settings with persons with serious mental illness has become a national health personpower issue, particularly in underserved rural areas. This study was conceived in order to obtain a better basis for curriculum development and recruitment strategies. Graduate and undergraduate social work students, representing the greatest pool of mental health practitioners, were surveyed about their perceptions about working with persons with serious mental illness and about factors which are most important to their future job satisfaction. The findings indicate positive perceptions about work with the seriously mentally ill population by a significant number of students, and further reveal that students project job satisfaction factors related to intrinsic reward and ability to learn and grow in their work. The findings also reveal group differences related to educational level, previous work experience in mental health and expressed interest in working with persons with serious mental illness. Important implications for practitioner education, recruitment, administration and job development and ongoing in-service training are discussed.

Intensive child case management: Work roles and activities

This paper presents findings from a project undertaken to explore the implementation of one rural states intensive child case management program for families with children with severe emotional and behavioral disabilities. Interviews with 20 child case management staff were conducted for the purpose of describing perceived work roles and activities. Thematic and content analysis of staff interviews revealed differences in staff perceptions regarding the role of the case manager, the “ideal” work activities of the case manager, and the barriers to achieving the “ideal” work activities. The discussion focuses on social work practice and policy implications for the provision of intensive child case management programs, and provides recommendations for areas of further inquiry.

Creating a System of Care for Children's Mental Health in a Native American Community

This article describes the creation of a system of care in childrens mental health by the Passamaquoddy Tribe located in Princeton, Maine. The history of this Native American community; the impact of oppression, historical trauma, and contemporary economic, health, and educational inequities on child and family health well-being; and the barriers to providing culturally competent child mental health services are reviewed. Descriptions of the key components and core concepts of the system of care are presented along with case examples highlighting the array of services. Finally, implications for practice in the creation of culturally competent systems of care within Native American communities are discussed.