<p> Child welfare agencies continue to be challenged in their separate and collaborative pursuits to achieve child safety, well-being, and permanence. The debate over separation of church and state is turning new corners with the recognition that collaboration between faith-based communities and public/private child welfare can exist and yield great benefits. Individual sovereignty of faith-based, non-profit, private, and public child welfare agencies can better provide for national mandates of child safety, well-being, and permanency by allowing every provider to fulfill its mission according to its own values. Greater collaboration should be viewed less as private and faith-based supplementation of public incapacity and more as a strategic partnerships that capitalizes on the strength of each public and private sectors. Online, competency-based learning communities hold great promise to provide discursive learning opportunities for the transfer of training and practice knowledge regarding faith-based partnerships to advance the mandates of child welfare.</p>