Few fields of service command as much public attention as child welfare. Workforce development is often a less visible yet critical response to service delivery crises and efforts to improve child and family outcomes. In the late 1980s, a campaign was undertaken to rebuild public child welfare systems with trained social workers. The subsequent workforce development in child welfare has compelled creative leadership among social work educators and their partnering public child welfare agencies. These partnerships have led to experimental and innovative changes in practice, in curricula, and in expanding partnerships. This special collection of articles captures some of the milestone work in workforce development. The articles depict some of the challenges as well as dimensions of these workforce development initiatives. Following an introduction (Katharine Briar-Lawson and Joan Levy Zlotnik), the articles are: (1) The Use of Title IV-E Training Funds for Social Work Education; An Historical Perspective" (Joan Levy Zlotnik); (2) "Use of Title IV-E Funding in BSW [Bachelor of Social Work] programs (Lois Pierce); (3) "Do Collaborations with Schools of Social Work Make a Difference for the Field of Child Welfare?: Practice, Retention and Curriculum" (Maria Scannapieco and Kelli Connell-Corrick); (4) "Preparing Students for Public Child Welfare: Evaluation Issues and Strategies" (Nancy Feyl Chavkin and J. Karen Brown); (5) "Finding and Keeping Child Welfare Workers: Effective Use of Training and Professional Development" (Stephen R. Fox, Viola P. Miller, and Anita P. Barbee); (6) "Preparing for Child Welfare Practice: Themes, a Cognitive-Affective Model, and Implications from a Qualitative Study" (Daniel Coleman and Sherrill Clark); (7) "Preparing Social Work Students for Interdisciplinary Practice: Learnings from a Curriculum Development Project" (Bart Grossman and Kathleen McCormick); (8) "Moving toward Collaboration: Using Funding Streams to Advance Partnerships in Child Welfare Practice" (Richard Phillips, Patty Gregory, and Mardell Nelson); (9) "The California Collaboration: A Competency-Based Child Welfare Curriculum Project for Master's Social Workers" (Sherrill Clark); (10) "Design Teams as Learning Systems for Complex Systems Change: Evaluation Data and Implications for Higher Education" (Hal A. Lawson, Dawn Anderson-Butcher, Nancy Petersen, and Carenlee Barkdull); (12) "Vital Involvement: A Key to Grounding Child Welfare Practice in HBSE Theory" (Helen Q. Kivnick, Marcie D. Jefferys, and Patricia J. Heier); and (13) "Current Challenges and Future Directions for Collaborative Child Welfare Educational Programs" (Christina Risley-Curtiss). (Chapters each contain references.) (HTH)