ERIC Number: EJ1260194
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2020
Pages: 8
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1043-7797
EISSN: N/A
Skills for Collaboration: Training Graduate Students in Using Evidence to Evaluate a Homelessness Program
Lery, Bridgette; Haight, Jennifer Miller; Roscoe, Joseph N.
Journal of Social Work Education, v56 suppl 1 pS111-S118 2020
This article describes how a university and public child welfare agency partnership and a federal demonstration project trained MSW and PhD social welfare students in homelessness intervention research using a continuous quality improvement approach. Over a period of 5 years, the Cal-Child Welfare Leadership Training model between University of California, Berkeley's School of Social Welfare and San Francisco's Human Services Agency sought to train graduate students how to find, generate, and use evidence for child welfare decision making. Simultaneously and independently, the partnership designed and implemented a 5-year randomized controlled trial testing the effectiveness of permanent supportive housing for homeless families entering the child welfare system, called Families Moving Forward. We took advantage of the congruity of these two efforts by bringing student interns directly into the ongoing implementation and evaluation of Families Moving Forward, exposing them to implementation challenges that contextualize and moderate expectations about how a complex program for complex families should lead to improved outcomes. The aim was to endow students with the knowledge, skills, and discipline necessary to help make complex interventions work by fostering cross-system collaboration. We propose ways this teaching model can be scaled and installed elsewhere.
Descriptors: Graduate Students, Program Evaluation, Homeless People, Child Welfare, Public Agencies, Universities, Social Work, Intervention, Data Use, Decision Making, Housing Needs, Family Programs, Program Implementation, Total Quality Management, Evidence Based Practice, Skill Development, Research Skills, Cooperative Programs
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: California (Berkeley); California (San Francisco)
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A