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Panel Explores Challenges, Opportunities Facing Child Welfare Researchers

  • Research

In recent years, the USC School of Social Work has worked in close partnership with a cross section of Los Angeles County agencies that impact child well-being, strongly encouraging collaboration and use of evidence-based research to improve outcomes for children. Because of this collaboration – with USC and other university partners in the region – Los Angeles County has been able to initiate often-time difficult changes and improvements to the child welfare system. Having research to implement change was a key factor.

But such collaboration is not without its challenges, Dean Marilyn Flynn pointed out, as moderator of a USC-sponsored panel of top government officials involved in child welfare in Los Angeles County for the “Doris Duke Fellowship for the Promotion of Child Well-being” mid-year gathering.

The event kicked off the “Partnering to Prevent Maltreatment & Improve Child Well-being on the West Coast: Innovative Approaches and Multiple Lenses to Knowledge Generation" three-day meeting, which is one of two annual opportunities for doctoral candidates of the Doris Duke Fellowship Program to network, share ideas and gain exposure to new innovations and thinking regarding child maltreatment prevention.

Flynn probed panelists on how universities and their researchers can do a better job of promoting collaboration and research to inform and evaluate programs and policies, as well as improve systems of service.

Panelists reiterated the value of research in driving policy, as well as its importance in helping prepare and energize the next generation of social workers for the future. 

Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services Director Phillip Browning cited universities as critical for training and educating social workers, while also pointing out the vital role research plays in that regard.

“Research can really help us…because we’d like to have staff who know and practice their craft in a manner that gets the best result…we’d like to have the evidence-based research that can back up what we’re doing,” he said. 

Panelist Fesia Davenport, interim director of the newly created Department of Child Protection in Los Angeles County, cited research and data as critical to the filtering process, especially as her new agency begins to prioritize overarching child welfare strategies. Moving forward, “we’re going to need justification,” she said, which evidence-based research provides.

Likewise, Chief Probation Officer for Los Angeles County Jerry Powers pointed out how research can be important for prioritization of limited resources.

“We only have a limited pot of money, so we can’t afford to be wrong…if we have a choice between what is proven by research or what ‘might’ be promising, we’re going to go where the research tells us to go.”  

But the panel also discussed the challenges of integrating evidenced-based research in a multi-agency child welfare system, particularly one like Los Angeles County’s that is one of the largest in the U.S. Challenges included archaic data systems that don’t allow information sharing and cross-agency analyses, and the need for better and continued data-sharing across departments. Browning also cited the need for stronger communication among agencies in order to achieve better outcomes. “Communication is the biggest challenge,” he said.

The Doris Duke Fellowship for the Promotion of Child Well-being is a two-year fellowship for doctoral candidates administered by Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago. The program currently funds approximately 30 fellows across the nation. Two USC doctoral students have received the fellowship in the past four years, including Megan Finno-Velasquez, who helped organize this year’s meeting.

Watch the full panel discussion here.

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