With the growing presence of Latino families across the United States, service providers must remain cognizant of this group’s unique sociocultural characteristics. Culturally competent service provision requires child welfare professionals to remain aware of the stressors often faced by this population. Immigration and acculturation issues, language and cultural barriers, poverty, discrimination, fear of deportation, and lack of access to a variety of services are a few of the stressors that are commonly experienced by this group. Linguistically competent practice requires service provision to be in a families’ native language; however, there are many other factors to consider even when doing so. Cultural unfamiliarity, inadequate bi-lingual worker training in professional terminology, and issues with translators and interpreters are all factors to be considered. It was hypothesized that the relationships between clients and workers may depend on shared culture, that cultural differences due to different backgrounds and countries of origin may hinder working relationships. Through qualitative face to face interviews, this study gained insight into Spanish-speaking client and worker perspectives on their working relationships. The study aimed to understand the advantages and limitations to matching clients and workers solely on shared language. Findings suggest that cultural similarities or differences were not the primary relationship concerns for either workers or clients. Rather, both clients and workers expressed more salient concerns related to the lack of resources for translation and interpretation, the absence of worker Spanish-language training, clients’ limited willingness/ability to advocate for themselves, and increased workload and supervisory lack of support. It is recommended that supervisors take part in mandatory trainings aimed at managing such complex caseloads, that workers receive continuous Spanish language training in professional terminology as well as case management training tailored towards this specific population, and that a more uniform and informative approach is developed when working with these families. Although the present study attempts to address the knowledge gap involving client perspectives, additional research should focus on client experiences more heavily. Further research is also needed in assessing the adequacy of county-made language certification tests and worker perception of language competency while out in the field.

The over-representation of Black children within the child welfare system has been an ongoing topic of discussion for decades across the country. The common theme, across the United States, is that Black children are entering the child welfare systems at disproportionate rates compared to their counterparts and they tend to experience disparities in outcomes including higher recidivism rates and lower reunification rates. Although many studies examine the factors that contribute to this alarming trend, the problem still exists within child welfare systems across the country. This quantitative study’s purpose was to examine the perceptions of MSW Title IV-E students related to disproportionality and disparity among Black families within child welfare agencies. The study examined whether participants’ perceptions varied by the participant’s race/ethnicity. Participants completed an online questionnaire using Qualtrics software. Data were analyzed using SPSS statistical software and statistical tests including frequencies, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), and Tukey’s post-hoc test. Significant differences were found in perceptions between Black/African American participants and Latino/Hispanic participants. These findings and their implications are discussed.

The Masters in Social Work (MSW) program at California State University of San Bernardino utilizes a substantial portion of lecture hours bringing attention to areas in which racial disparities exist, as well as the negative impact that these racial disparities have on certain cultures and communities. This project focuses on the disparities involving African-American families in the public child welfare system and how cultural competence trainings may impact this overrepresentation. This research project consists of the exploration of past research relevant to this project, which pertains to cultural competence, the overrepresentation of African-American, and trainings on cultural competence. In addition, a 5-point Likert-scale survey focused on the need and effectiveness of cultural competency trainings from a student’s perspective, was completed by CSUSB MSW students. The data was then analyzed using SPSS statistics software employing tests that included frequencies, ANOVA, and a t-test. This project hypothesized that perspectives on cultural competence and cultural competence trainings differed along racial lines, and that there was no significant difference in response based on year in MSW program. Only the latter was support according to the data. This could also be interpreted to mean that students are not receiving much curriculum on cultural competence, which the curriculum is not meaningful enough to change their perceptions, or that students enter the program with fairly favorable perceptions of the importance of cultural competency.

This project explores the barriers to reunification with their children for incarcerated mothers in an effort to provide more support to child welfare social workers who engage with this population. Project participants were selected from one regional office of a child welfare agency in Southern California to complete qualitative interviews. Participants included seven Social Service Practitioners (SSPs), two Supervising Social Service Practitioners (SSSPs), and one Data Analysist. Each participant’s interview was digitally recorded, transcribed, and analyzed following the systematic manual coding method with the assistance of Microsoft Word (Ose, S, 2016). Five common barriers were identified: child visitations with incarcerated parents, variances of social worker’s knowledge of services and programs provided by institutions, presence of guidance and support, maintaining contact with incarcerated parents, and length of sentence. At the conclusion of the project, the researcher provided findings to study participants and the Deputy Director of the child welfare agency.

The bond between animals and humans is one that has been consistent and unyielding since the beginning of time. Although animals have a long working history in assisting on battlefields and working for the police, it is only within recent decades that they have started expanding their job duties to include disaster relief, educational supports, and trauma care. This movement of training canines for specialty fields to work alongside their human companions comes at a time when the field of social work is also diversifying to a more expansive and accessible profession. This study will use interview style questions to assess the beliefs, experience and attitudes of canine assistance of eight current MSW students throughout Southern California. The research was conducted in face to face interviews which were audio recorded and transcribed word for word to examine common themes. The findings of the study may help to encourage further integration of social work and canine assisted therapies.

A Child and Family Team Meeting (CFTM) is an engagement tool utilized by child welfare agencies across the state of California to strengthen families and ensure the protection for a child in the foster care system by making decisions in a group setting. This research study examines social workers’ perspectives of CFTMs in a county child welfare agency in Southern California. The literature review supports the utilization of CFTMs as a practice to enhance engagement with families and achieve better outcomes for the organization. A constructivist research paradigm was used in conducting this study, which collected qualitative data through interviews from key stakeholders at the study site. Social workers who work closely with families and participate in CFTMs contributed to the shared construction. The data was analyzed using a thematic analysis technique, and member checking in meetings was used to reflect on the shared construction of the usefulness of CFTMs. The findings of study revealed that CFTMs are widely accepted by social workers and agency staff as an engagement tool to induce positive outcomes for the children and families involved. The perspectives of the participants revealed themes of increased engagement, communication, involved decision‑making, transparency in services and improved social work practice. The data gathered from this study provided a better understanding of CFTMs and may enhance social work practice by highlighting the need for agency support in workload reduction to allow for adequate time to prepare families for the CFTM and improve outcomes for safety, permanency and well‑being.

Various levels of research over the past three decades have concluded that children are harmed by constant changes to where they reside when they are removed from the care of their parents. Regardless of that, minimal research has been conducted to investigate this problem from the perspective of the social worker. This study explores the problem of placement instability among adolescent populations from the perspective of foster family agency social workers in Riverside County, California. Interviews with foster family agency social workers were conducted using a digital voice-recording device. The audio files were transcribed to text and thematically analyzed for relevant commonalities among participants. The data provided more detailed information regarding what the social workers believed to be the factors involved in placement instability. Four main categories were observed and explored in detail; trauma, inter-agency communication, mental health access and foster parent education were consistent themes of the data set. This research provides the groundwork for further research from people who work in a central role that is pivotal to lessening the instances of placement instability.

Sibling violence is a pervasive, yet poorly understood and substantially underreported phenomenon. Currently recognized as the most common form of intra-familial abuse, various estimates suggest that 30 percent or more of children in the general population experience severe acts of violence inflicted by a sibling each year. Given that many young people in the child welfare system experience the family conditions associated with abusive sibling violence, recent publications have implored child welfare to embrace the notion that it is a form of child maltreatment. Practitioners and policymakers have yet to reach agreement on what constitutes physical or emotional abuse between siblings, and the perspectives of young people with lived experience of abuse are largely absent from research and scholarship. I designed the study, grounded in Critical Realism, to increase understanding of how sibling violence manifests in child welfare, contribute to theory development, and identify actions to protect children from harm. Based on in-depth interviews with eight foster care alumni, I offer a refined definition of sibling violence and four family conditions associated with sibling violence in child welfare. The findings also supported a systems-based theory reflecting four stable family member roles. My recommendations seek to leverage the infrastructure of the child welfare system while taking into consideration the limitations imposed by neoliberal social and economic policy.

Maltreated children are at risk for placement disruption, mental health and substance issues, delinquent behaviors, and poverty issues. When children in foster care experience these risks, they decrease the likelihood of leaving foster care successfully. Resiliency is a critical component in increasing positive outcomes for foster children despite these risk factors. The purpose of this action research was to understand the role foster care workers have in developing resiliency in foster children. The theory of attachment and resiliency provided the conceptual framework for the study. Two focus groups were used to collect data from 5 foster care social workers in southern Louisiana. Data were analyzed using thematic coding. Findings from the study showed 6 key themes: adapting and coping, safety needs, protective factors, behavior issues, preparing placement, and resources. The implications of these findings for social change include providing support for the importance of resiliency in the foster care system and increasing positive foster care experiences that lead to positive outcomes for those transitioning out of foster care.

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