Agency-university research partnerships are proven effective strategies that can be used to test interventions and to gather, analyze and use data to improve service delivery outcomes. For the March 27-28 Wicked Problems: Meeting the Grand Challenges of Child Welfare symposium, Social Work Policy Institute Director, Joan Levy Zlotnik developed an action brief, Creating and Sustaining Effective and Outcome-Oriented Child Welfare University Agency Research Partnerships. The symposium was the fourth in a series co-convened by the University of North Carolina School of Social Work and the Children’s Home Society of America.
The meeting, bringing together representatives from private and public child serving agencies, think tanks, schools of social work, state and federal officials, and representatives of national organizations and foundations.
Presentations and discussions focused on private and public agency innovations; strategies for implementation of evidence-based practices, highlighting “A framework to design, test, spread and sustain effective practice in child welfare,” a new resource developed by the Children’s Bureau; and considerations for national policy improvements to more fully address the well-being of children who come in contact with the child welfare system. Among the outcomes of the meeting was an announcement by the two host entities that they were launching a Child Welfare Practice-Based Research Network to help inform and improve local, state and national policies around child welfare and well-being. For more information visit http://wickedproblems.web.unc.edu/.
