The California Collaboration

Summary

This article documents the Title IV-E child welfare social work project of the California Social Work Education Center (CalS WEC): The establishment and ongoing support of collaborative arrangements among 58 California counties, the California State Department of Social Services, and all of the California graduate social work schools. The primary goal of this collaboration is to produce MS Ws who will commit to helping disadvantaged children and families in publicly supported child welfare services. The project model contains five interdependent components: a competency-based curriculum, financial support for students, development of instructional materials, active participation among public child welfare agencies and the universities, and evaluation.

This paper focuses on the collaborative curriculum development process. Evolving arrangements among stakeholders are described here in terms of the reciprocal adjustment of curriculum development and field and classroom instruction to prepare MSWs for public child welfare careers.

Key Words:

• University-agency partnerships
• curriculum development
• Title IV-E funding
• public child welfare education