USF Awarded $3.7 million for New Web Portal to Share Best Practices in Child Welfare
For the first few months, the Center will be involved in hiring staff and gathering information. It will be fully operational by July 1 to provide these services:
- A fully searchable online knowledge base built around current rules and policies, embedded links to relevant Florida state and federal statutes and rules, recent decision memoranda or policy interpretations, fiscal requirements, national best practices, research and frequently asked questions with authoritative answers.
- Access to an interactive on-line information-sharing portal where DCF program and outsourced community-based care and child protective investigations staff can interact with each other and share documents. This component will feature video conferencing, video streamed educational and training presentations and other interactive functions designed to facilitate learning, information sharing, and identification of training and technical issues for inclusion in the Center's services.
- Consultation to groups and individuals by a cadre of high-level national experts. Such consultation will be provided through on-site meetings/training, video teleconferencing or via telephone depending on the need of the customer. The Center's automated web portal will be fully utilized to provide access to expertise in a cost efficient and timely manner. Expertise will not be limited to program or administrative content areas; as functionality expands, experts in quality management, training, licensing and recruitment, and other support functions may be added as the priorities of users are identified.
By Barbara Perkins, USF Media Relations
The Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) has awarded a three-year, $3.7 million grant to the University of South Florida’s Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute (FMHI) to develop Florida’s Center for the Advancement of Child Welfare Practice, an innovative statewide informational Web portal. The portal will include a comprehensive database, a variety of training and consultation options and advanced interactive components. FMHI successfully responded to a state-wide Request for Information issued last December to Florida’s accredited colleges and universities.
"In order for our families to receive the best possible services we need to provide state-of-the-art support to both our internal and external stakeholders. Beginning with a steering committee composed of DCF, community based care and Sheriff's office representatives, the Florida Center has been designed to take advantage of the most current research and technology to provide that support,” said Harry Propper, a DCF operations administrator and steering committee member. “We are excited about our partnership with the University and look forward to advancing Florida's child welfare practice in support of Florida's children and families.”
Center staff will be able to interact “virtually” with customers to provide timely assistance and support with questions about using the Web portal or trouble-shooting any technical challenges they may encounter.
“We trust this service will ultimately result in the successful advancement of child welfare practice throughout the state,” said Don Policella, Center Director and project principal investigator. “We will provide information that customers want, practices they wish to discover, strategies for delivery of service and advancement of communities to better safeguard our children and families exist and are emerging regularly throughout the nation. The Center will rapidly acquire and disseminate this information to its child welfare customers using innovative technology.”
Due to the many issues that face children, families and communities, child protection and welfare services are complex and involve a number of disciplines and services critical to developing successful strategies and outcomes for children. Substance abuse, mental health, domestic violence and sexual abuse are among the various issues that research, practice and service systems are challenged to understand and address.
“Our goal is to help bring synergy among the varying service agencies, as well as help take away the labor intensive work associated with getting information,” Policella said. “The Center will establish user-friendly and customer-driven processes and designs that will allow easy access to computer-based information 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
As one of the largest behavioral services research centers in the United States, FMHI is uniquely qualified, having provided research, training, education and support services to mental health and child welfare professionals, consumer organizations and behavioral health advocates for more than thirty years.
“We are proud to be a part of Florida’s efforts to advance the state’s child welfare practice in such a multidisciplinary way,” said Policella. “Children brought to the attention of child welfare services are not always accommodated by the standard service array. Cultural diversity, developmental disabilities, and varying degrees of trauma-related symptoms are among the issues that must also be included in our best practice knowledge base, innovative skill set, and system of care strategies. We look forward to being the gatherers and facilitators of such important knowledge.”