Project Details
Florida's Center for the Advancement of Child Welfare Practice
Description
Florida's Center for the Advancement of Child Welfare Practice (The Center) was established to provide needed information and support to Florida’s professional child welfare stakeholders. Funding is provided through a contract with Department of Children and Families. The Center’s mission is to support and facilitate the identification, expansion, and transfer of expert knowledge and best practices in child welfare case practice, direct services, management, finances, policy, and organizational development to child welfare and child protection stakeholders throughout Florida. Operating within the University of South Florida’s Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute (FMHI), the Center will serve Child Protective Investigation professionals of DCF and various Sheriff’s Offices; Child Welfare Legal Services provided by DCF and the Attorney General or State’s Attorney Offices, and Community–Based Care Lead Agencies.
The Center functions under the guidance of a joint statewide Steering Committee of stakeholders who act similar to a Board of Directors. The Steering Committee’s mission is as follows:
The Steering Committee will establish the vision for excellence in the protection of children and promotion of families. Through oversight and guidance to the Center for Advancement of Child Welfare Practice, strategies will be developed to ensure sustained support of customer needs in addition to addressing solutions for emerging issues.
Primary Objectives of The Center
- Ensure timely and consistent information to Florida's child welfare professionals emphasizing easy access 24 hours a day, seven days a week, resulting in one right answer accessible to all users statewide on demand.
- Link customers to resources, innovations, and evidence-based models and best practices throughout the country.
- Enable virtual meetings and on-line collaborative forums that facilitate communication and information sharing among Florida's child welfare professionals.
Services
Knowledge Base
A fully searchable on-line knowledge base is built around current rules and policies, embedded links to relevant Florida State and Federal statutes and rules, recent decision memoranda or policy interpretations, fiscal requirements, national best practices, research, and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) with authoritative answers. The Center processes requests from customers for policy clarification or interpretation by acquiring answers from the DCF and posting those in the Center database. Knowledge base access is available on-line to all users 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Collaboration (available July 2007)
The collaboration component serves as an interactive on-line information-sharing portal where peers and experts can interact with each other and share documents. This component features video conferencing, video streamed educational and training presentations, and other interactive functions designed to facilitate learning, information sharing, and identification of training and technical issues for inclusion in The Center's services.
Consultation (available July 2007)
Individual consultation is available by a cadre of high level, multi-disciplinary national experts. The Center will coordinate and sponsor consultation services at the request of customer leadership. Such consultation will be provided through a number of mechanisms including on-site meetings/training and video teleconferencing, depending on the need of the customer. Expertise will include program and administrative content areas.
Service Limits
The Center does not establish or interpret policy, statute, or rules. The Center does not engage in subjective discussions or exchanges about such matters and does not provide advice or information about operational matters.
The Center does not provide case, family, or child specific services.
Center Staff
Donald N. Policella, Center Director
Pamela Menendez, Knowledge Management Administrator
Kris Adler, Technical Assistance
Lisa Coy, Knowledge Manager
Chris McCann, Technical Support
Gwen McClain, Operations Coordinator/Quality Assurance
Roxann McNeish, Knowledge Manager
Ron Menard, Center IT Applications Coordinator
John Moore, Knowledge Manager
Patricia Uber, Office Assistance
HYPERLINK "http://centerforchildwelfare.fmhi.usf.edu/" http://centerforchildwelfare.fmhi.usf.edu/
HYPERLINK "http://cbcta.fmhi.usf.edu/PDFs/center_presentation.ppt" http://cbcta.fmhi.usf.edu/PDFs/center_presentation.
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